526 The Ancient Puéblos, [ August, 
THE ANCIENT PUEBLOS, OR THE RUINS | OF- THE 
VALLEY OF THE RIO SAN JUAN. 
BY EDWIN A. BARBER. 
PART I. 
S early as the sixteenth century, about the year fifteen hun- 
dred and thirty-nine (1539), some of the deserted cities of a 
pre-histeric people (which have since been found to be so numer- 
ous all through a portion of the Pacific slope of North America, 
were observed by several of the Spanish expeditions which had 
penetrated into the country north of Mexico, known then under 
the general name of New Mexico, including the present Terri- 
tory of Arizona. Many of the towns of this section were at that 
early date found to be in ruins, presenting every indication of a 
great antiquity ; while others, which now lie mouldering in the 
cafions of the far west, were found by these old explorers, at 
that time, to be occupied. The course of the Spaniards, headed 
by Coronado and others, lay to the south of the San Juan river, 
passing through the valley of the Rio Grande del Norte, on the 
Atlantic slope, the seat of the so-called Puéblo Indians, and west- 
ward through Zuñi, then known as Cibola, and so on to the 
ancient province of Zusayan, or our modern Mogut, on the Pacific 
or western slope of the Rocky mountains. 
ntil the past year or so, however, the great stretch of country 
lying west of the Range, including portions of Southern Colo- 
rado and Utah, and much of Arizona and New Mexico, was 
entirely or almost unknown. Our only knowledge of it con- 
sisted in the inconclusive and contradictory reports of expeditions 
or individuals which had crossed the borders of the ancient 
domains; and from their casual discoveries we were made aware 
of the existence of a multitude of ruins which extended as tar 
north as the thirty-ecighth degree of latitude. Unsatisfactory as 
this information was, it served to arouse a latent interest and to 
create a thirst for more facts among cultured circles, and opened 
a new and vast field for scientific research. During the summer 
of 1874 a pioneer corps was sent out by Prof. F. V. Hayden, of 
the United States Geological Survey, to photograph any ancient 
_ structures which might be discovered in South-western Colorado 
=~ and South-eastern Utah, thus preparing the way, as it were, for a 
-1Extracts from a paper written by the author and read before the Congrés des a 
Américanistes, at Luxembourg, in September, 1877, with additions. 
See 
