EXCURSION TO THE BIRTH-PLACE OF MONTEZUMA, 419 
IMEC IaLA ION OIG NG. 
A HOLIDAY EXCURSION BY RAIL TO THE BIRTH-PLACE OF 
MONTEZUMA. 
THEO. S. CASE, KANSAS CITY, MO. 
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Arrived at Baughl’s station, on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe 
rail road, which is no more than a siding where rail road ties are re- 
ceived and handled, and which simply consists of a boarding car and two 
saloons, we started on foot for the scene of our explorations, about one mile and 
a half distant. Before entering upon a description of the ruins found here, I will 
say that notwithstanding the volumes that have been written by the explorers of 
this central portion of the Western Hemisphere, descriptive of its past civiliza- 
tion, the vastness and perfection of that civilization have been by no means 
comprehended. Every day the hardy and venturesome prospectors of New Mexi- 
co, who, like the Spaniards of the sixteenth century, are urged on by an ardent 
quest of precious metals, discover new evidences of the existence in prehistoric 
times of a race of men who, in architecture, agriculture and metallurgy, possessed. 
a degree of knowledge and skill hardly surpassed in any age. 
The discoveries of these explorers also go far to prove that the land which 
is now so utterly unproductive, was once sufficiently arable and prolific of vegeta- 
tion to support a dense population, and that the various reasons which are pro- 
posed by the writers of the present day to account for the abandonment of the 
country by these people, such as superstitious fears, the aggressions of hostile 
tribes, etc., are futile and unsatisfactory. . 
It seems unquestionable that some vast change took place in the geological 
and physical condition of the country, causing its fountains to dry up, and 
changing its fertile valleys into arid wastes, thus literally starving the people out 
and forcing them to seek new homes. This idea brings to the front the theory 
and tradition of the Continent of Atlantis with more plausibility than almost any 
other: a theory which, if established, will enable us to account for the migration 
of ancient peoples from one continent to the other without tasking our credulity 
with the extremely doubtful one of the Behrings Straits route. 
Before we had proceeded more than half a mile we came into view 
of the church and ruins of Pecos, lying on a beautiful plateau on the further side 
of the Pecos river, and separated by a narrow valley from a commanding range 
of mountains several miles beyond. This plateau seemed to be completely sur- 
