REPORT ON THE ANCIENT RUINS OF SOUTHWESTERN COLORA- 

 DO, EXAMINED DURING THE SUlMERS OF 1875 AND 1876. 



By W. H. Holmes. 



In addition to my duties as geologist to the southwest or San Juan 

 division of tlie survey for 1875, I was assigned the very agreeable task 

 of making examinations of such ancient remains as might be included 

 in the district surveyed ; also in 1876, in company with Mr. Wilson, 

 director of the primary triangulation, I revisited the northern border of 

 the same district and made additional observations. 



Previous to 1875 much information had already been given to the 

 public in relation to the ruins of Southwestern Colorado by Mr. Jack- 

 son, who paid them a short visit in 1874, and many similar remains had 

 been described by early explorers in New Mexico and Arizona, but 

 nothing like a complete survey of this i)articular region had been made. 



The district examined by our party covers an area of nearly 6,000 

 square miles, chiefly in Colorado, but which includes narrow belts in 

 the adjacent Territories of New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona. It lies 

 wholly on the Pacific slope, and belongs almost entirely to the drain- 

 age-system of the Eio San Juan, a tributary of the Colorado of the 

 West. 



Lying along the west base of the mountains is a comparatively flat 

 country, the eastern border of the great plateau-region that reaches 

 westward toward the Sierras. The surface-geology is chiefly Creta- 

 ceous, and the various large streams formed on the. west slope of the 

 Eocky Mountains have cut long cauoned valleys down through the 

 nearly horizontal beds. In the greater part of this region there is lit- 

 tle moisture apart from these streams, and, as a consequence, vegeta- 

 tion is very sparse, and the general aspect of the country is that of a 

 semi desert. Yet there is bountiful evidence that at one time it sup- 

 ported a numerous population ; there is scarcely a square mile in the 

 6,000 examined that does hot furoish evidence of previous occupation 

 by a race totally distinct from the nomadic savages who hold it now, 

 and in many ways superior to them. 



At first, it seems strange that a country so dry and apparently barren 

 as this now is could support even a moderate population, and it is con- 

 sequently argued that the climate has grown less moist since the an- 

 cient occupation. Be this as it may, I observe the fact that the great 

 bulk of remains are on or in the immediate neighborhood of running 

 streams, or by springs that furnish a i>lentiful supply of water during 

 the greater part of the year. The ever-present pottery may in many 

 cases have been broken and left by hunting and wandering parties, and 

 the remnants of dwellings far out from water may have been but tem- 

 porary abodes used only in the winter or during rainy seasons. 



I also notice that the country is by no means an entire desert. All 

 along the stream-courses, there are grass-covered meadows and broad 

 belts of alluvial bottom, affording, if properly utilized, a considerable 

 area of rich tillable land. 



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