KOVEMBEE 19, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



i;. 



jamin Franklin, who suggested that he write 

 a history of electricity and to whom he dedi- 

 cated his " Description of a Chart of History," 

 and because the later years of his life were 

 spent in Pennsylvania. 



Charles K. Wead 



the zia mesa axd rudts 

 Js Mr. Edgar L. Hewett's " Antiquities of 

 the Jemez Plateau, Xew Mexico," page 45, 

 the description of village Xo. 41 reads: 



On a partially isolated bit of mesa about three 

 miles west of Jemez is a considerable ruin, which 

 does not bear evidence, however, of long occu- 

 pancy. The summit of the mesa is without trees 

 and almost without soil, and water must have 

 been obtained from below. The walls of the ruin 

 are well defined, and stand in place five or six 

 feet in height; but they are formed of rough, 

 loosely laid stones, and are extremely thin and 

 unstable. They could not have been high at any 

 time, as there is a marked absence of debris, and 

 the dearth of pottery and kitchen refuse would 

 seem to stamp the place as a temporary or emer- 

 gency abode. The site is favorable for defense, 

 and there are traces of defensive walls along the 

 margin and the summit. The buildings are ir- 

 regular in plan and comprise three groups, the 

 full length of the groups being about 450 feet and 

 width 350. . . . There appears to be no definite 

 historic reference to this site.' 



I wish to call attention to the last sentence 

 quoted : 



The archives at Santa Yi state that when Diego 

 de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon, governor 

 of El Paso and the Xorthem Province, made his 

 first entrada northward in 1692 he found that the 

 Zias and Santa Annas together had built a new 

 village on Mesa Colorado (Red Mesa) and the 

 Jeraez, Santo Domingo and a few Apaches were 

 fortified on the other mesa at the forks of the 

 river. The Zias readily submitted but the Jemez 

 were hostile. Their place submitted finally, Oc- 

 tober 26, 1692.' 



Also when bringing the hostile pueblos under 



' Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American 

 Ethnology, Bulletin 32, pp. 45-6. Also see 

 '■ Notes on the Jemez Valley, New Mexico," by 

 W. H. Holmes, American Anthropologist, Vol. I., 

 Ko. 2, April-June, 1905. 



• Also see Bancroft's " History," the volume on 

 New Mexico and Arizona. 



subjugation. Governor Vargas with 120 men 

 joined the Queres under Chief Ojeda in an attack 

 on the .Jemez on July 21, 1694. While en route 

 tlie Zia Mesa (Mesa Colorado) was captured, five 

 men being killed. Then on July 24 they took the 

 Jemez mesa-pueblo, called Mesa Don Diego. The 

 fight here was one of the fiercest fought, the 

 Queres did much in securing the place. Here Don 

 Eusebio de Vargas, brother of the governor, dis- 

 tinguished himself. The Jemez lost 81 killed, 371 

 prisoners, the village was sacked and burned, 300 

 fanegas of com were captured. The .Jemez gov- 

 ernor. Chief Diego, was surrendered, first con- 

 demned to be shot, but finally sent as a slave to 

 the mines of Xueva Vizcaya; the Indians sur- 

 rendered him, it is stated, saying that he had been 

 the cause of the trouble. The prisoners, in part, 

 were allowed to go back to Jemez and build on 

 the old site in the valley, if they would promise 

 to aid in the wars when needed. Their wives and 

 children were kept as hostages till after the cap- 

 ture of San Ildefonso, which was then still hold- 

 ing out against the Spani.sh authority.' 



The village on Mesa Colorado referred to in 

 the archives is undoubtedly the ruin No. 41, 

 mentioned by Mr. Hewett and also by Mr. 

 Holmes. The writer has often visited the- 

 mesa and village in question. The rocks of 

 the mesa are almost blood red in color, so red 

 that even the walls of the writer's office in the 

 Jemez village three miles distant were caused 

 to have a reddish glow from the reflected sun- 

 light in the early morning hours. There is 

 no other mesa in the vicinity on which a vil- 

 lage-ruin is situated, except the one at the 

 forks of the river on which the old Jemez vil- 

 lage was located. Furthermore, the Jemez 

 people call the Eed Mesa the Zia Mesa to-day; 

 and the Zias themselves say that their people 

 once lived on it. The ruin on it, I reassert, 

 is undoubtedly the Zia pueblo on Mesa Colo- 

 rado mentioned in the Spanish records. 



Note. — In all the areheological notes on the- 

 Jemez region there seems to be no mention 

 of the remains of an ancient reservoir back of 

 the white buttes at the mouth of a canyada 

 that comes down from the foothills and enters 

 the valley-flat adjacent to the Zia Mesa. This 

 reservoir doubtless supplied the village with 

 water for drinking purposes at times. 



• " Archives, New Mexico," 158-162. 



