ANCIENT WORKS IN NEW MEXICO. 605 
women shall be grinding at the mill,” says the Hebrew prophecy, and it is said 
that in some parts of this territory to-day two women together grind wheat betwen 
flat stones—the one partly grinding it and the other completing the operation. 
The ‘‘ bottles” for wine mentioned in ancient records are known to have 
been goat-skin flasks, and such are in use to-day in this country; and so are the 
rawhide wine vats, such as were used by the wine makers of Syria ages ago, and 
perhaps even by the sons of Noah. Our native adobe-makers would probably 
find making ‘‘ bricks without straw” as unsatisfactory as did the Hebrew slaves 
of the Egyptians thirty-four hundred years ago. 
The ass and the goat, the ‘‘ flocks and herds” of sheep, and the ‘cattle 
upon a thousand hills,” are features upon almost every page of the literature of 
‘‘the children of Shem dwelling in tents,” from the day of Abraham to this day, 
as they would be in a literature descriptive of every-day life in the Mexican 
‘* plaza” or on the lonely ranch. In fact, the American tourist who is unable to 
visit Syria, Arabia, Egypt and Barbary, but who wishes to realize in the sight of 
living forms and actual landscapes what he has read of these ‘‘cradle lands,” 
should come to New Mexico before the Gringo with his steam and electricity shall 
have swept away all these oriental resemblances except the landscape and the 
climate. — Thirty-Four. 
ANCIENT WORKS IN NEW MEXICO. 
New Mexico is perhaps the most noted country in the world for research. 
The historian, the wealth seeker and the ‘‘ curious” can here find a rich field and 
reward for their labor. The Abo and Gran Quivira counties are perhaps the 
most renowned in the Territory for research. In the former there are evidences 
of great volcanic eruptions which overwhelmed cities and buried the inhabitants 
in ashes and lava long ages ago. It is evident that these people, who are per- 
haps older than the Aztecs, were a prosperous race, with not a little advance in 
civilization, as the Abo ruins in the Manzana Mountains indicate; also some in- 
dications of fine art; rude figures and the images of animals being found upon 
the interior of the walls of the structures beneath the debris. 
It is evident that this non-historic race were seekers after mineral, and evi- 
dences also exist that mineral was obtained by them in paying quantities, there 
being the ruins of many old smelters and acres of slag found near Abo. Here mines 
are found with the timbers so rotten with age that great difficulty is experienced 
and danger incurred in going down into the old shafts, where shafts are formed. 
One of our informants gave as his belief that either the flow of lava or fall- 
ing leaves and dust had filled many of the shafts up, and the sand, earth and 
leaves so completely covered the ground that great care is required to find them, 
with but one or two exceptions—the Mount of the Holy Cross (so named) being 
- about the only one that could be easily discovered. 
