598 The Ancient and Modern Pueblo Tribes. — [ October, 
stones have been trimmed symmetrically into cubical and rectan- 
gular blocks; but it can be clearly seen upon careful examina- 
tion that the work was not accomplished through the agency of 
metallic tools. In several instances where the crude cedar frame- 
work of the apertures was still preserved, or where the wooden 
beams projected between the stories, we noticed that the ends 
had been cut or hacked with blunt stone axes. Everything in 
the architecture of the buildings, indeed, indicated the employ- 
ment of dull implements except in the masonic labor, where 
simply the hands of the workmen performed all the require- 
ments of such work. 
Among the pottery we found many handles of utensils which 
had almost invariably been hollowed out to give them as little 
weight as possible; and this was done, not by the use of iron or 
copper wires, but by means of straws and slender sticks, which 
left in the wet, plastic clay their perfect impressions. These were 
used, doubtless, for the purpose of strengthening the handles 
while in a plastic state. i 
The people. were driven from the land by another powerful 
race, as is evident from the many indications which exist on every 
hand. The great numbers of arrowheads and warlike weapons 
in the vicinity of all of the larger structures, the -quantities of 
shattered pottery, which in some measure resulted from the at- 
tacks of enemies, the appearance of the houses among the almost 
inaccessible cliffs, and the evident desire of their builders to con- 
ceal them from view by such artifices as imitating in them the 
texture and color of the surrounding rocks, —all these facts 
point to one conclusion : that the people were forced to migrate 
southwards by an irresistible enemy. ; 
To some extent, however, extreme drought may have been m 
strumental in this depopulation, for there are thousands of indi- 
cations that the country was at one time well watered both by 
running streams and springs, and by artificial acequias. The 
entire country must have undergone since its occupation a great 
physical change, in being transformed from a fertile, well-watered 
tract into a dreary, barren waste, and this alteration may have 
‘commenced toward the latter part of the existence of the ancient 
empire. Some time must have been required to effect this 
change, however, and the nation had long disappeared from its 
strongholds when the fountain-heads had almost entirely ce 
to flow. ee 
The Pueblo tribes of to-day are but scantily supplied with 
