Primitive Architecture in America. 311 



many other places. The canons grow deeper and more inaccessi- 

 ble as one travels southward. There are places where the level 

 plain between the walls of the canon range from half a mile to a 

 mile. Sach is the calioQ of the Kio Cbaco in New Mexico. 

 The Anamas and San Jaan rivers, which are both tributaries of 

 the Colorado river, contain many puebloes, but are lined with 

 valleys which extend, in places, even to three miles in width. 

 The Montezuma valley is a broad and level plain, 50 miles in 

 length and 10 miles wide. The bluffs bordering the eastern sides 

 rise boldly 1,500 feet. This whole district has great importance 

 as an early seat of village Indian life. The ruins which are found 

 in the valleys of the San Juan, Pine, La Plata, Anamas, Hoven- 

 weep rivers and the Eio Dolores, show that this remarkable area 

 has held a prominent place in the first and most ancient develop- 

 ment of village life in America. The number of puebloes found 

 in the valleys of these rivers cannot be stated, but from these re- 

 ports of the United States exploring expedition and other sources, 

 we learn that these pueblos, both ancient and modern, are scat- 

 tered thickly throughout the whole region. There are at present 

 about twenty pueblos in New Mexico. Beside these there are 

 about seven pueblos of the Moquis, near the LHtle Colorado. 

 The most important of these are the celebrated villages of the 

 Zunis, those in Santo Domingo, Tusayan, Taos, Jemez, Zia, Jose 

 Miguel. These are at present occupied, and are supposed to be 

 the same places which Coronado visited in 1541, and their pres- 

 ent occupants are the descendants of the people who lived in 

 them then. It is probable that some of the houses have stood 

 during the 340 years which have elapsed, and are the same as 

 they were with the exception of a lew modern improvements. 

 Mr. L, H. Morgan thinks that the villages of the Zuni are the 

 same as the Seven Cities of Cibola, so noted in history. In the 

 center of a plain, upon a commanding eminence, stands the in- 

 habited Pueblo. Its frontage is upon the river, where but a short 

 distance in the background the mesa terminates in tall cliffs, sev- 

 eral hundred feet high. The town is built in blocks, with ter- 

 raced shaped houses, usually three stories high, in which the lower 

 stories do service as the platform for those above. The town is 



