IN NEW MEXICO. 341 



ant Simpson, who made a reconnaissance in 1849, while we are indebted to 

 Lieutenants Whipple and Rogers Birnie, both of the survey west of the 

 100th meridian, for the discovery of a number of interesting ruins on the 

 Rio Mancos, Rio de las Animas, Rio San Juan, Canon Largo, and Canon 

 del Grovernador. Some of the fortified structures had as many as five 

 hundred rooms. Over the surrounding plain, solitary round buildings 

 were profusely scattered. Lieutenant Whipple describes one of these ruins 

 as being fifteen miles distant from any water; the climate, then, appears to 

 have changed and become drier. Among the pueblos of New Mexico there 

 exists a tradition in regard to these ruins Hosta,* a very kind, intelligent 

 old Indian, denies that these ruins were the result of Spanish wars, remark- 

 ing that, the rain falling less and less, these people emigrated to the south- 

 ward long before the Spaniards arrived in the country, being led by Mon- 

 tezuma, a powerful man, who was born in Pecos, and had settled with the 

 Pueblos on the Rio San Juan. Montezuma was to return and lead the rest 

 of the Pueblos also to the south, but he failed to come back. 



During the expedition of 1874 I had occasion to visit the ruins of 

 Pueblo Bonito,f at the head of Canon de Chaco. The ruins consist of one 

 large building with a yard surrounded by a wall, which forms a square, 

 the sides of which are nearly 200 feet long ; the doors of the building open 

 on this yard. The walls are 1 £ to 2 feet thick, and are built of plates of sand- 

 stone, like those found in the immediate vicinity. The south and west 

 sides of the square are formed by a three-story building, which descends in 

 terraces toward the interior of the square. The lowest story is 7 feet high, 

 the middle one 9, and the uppermost 6. The exterior row has ten rooms 

 in length; these rooms are 20 feet long by 6 feet wide. Into some of the 

 apartments no ray of light could enter, and they were probably rooms for 



* Hosta informed Lieutenant Simpson, in 1849, that the Pueblo Pintado "was built by Monte- 

 zuma and his people when they were on their way from the north towards the south ; that, after living 

 here and in the vicinity for a while, they dispersed, some of them going east and settling on the Rio 

 Grande and others south into Old Mexico." — Simpson, p. 77 (Senate document). This tradition seems 

 to me simply of value in expressing the belief held by some of the pueblo tribes, that the many ruined 

 towns were once the homes of the ancestors of the present pueblo tribes. — F. W. P. 



tThis description does not agree at all with the Pueblo Bonito of Lieutenant Simpson, and it is 

 very likely that Dr. Loew has followed Mr. Gregg in retaining the name of Bonito for the large ruin at 

 the head of the canon, described by Lieutenant Simpson under the name of Pueblo Pintado, and by the 

 latter name it is generally known. In this connection see the notice of the Pueblo Pintado by Lieu- 

 tenant Morrison, on page 366. — F. W. P. 



