TUCSON,
pronounced "Tuson," said to be one of the quaintest towns in all the West and next to the oldest place in the United States, I saw only by its electric lights. Phoenix, the capital, is thirty-four miles from our route on a branch road. I was so charmed with descriptions of the country thereabouts, I copy for your readers some interesting matter:
"All this country was settled by an earlier race than any of the present Indians. The cliffs all through these Arizona mountains are covered with hieroglyphics and pictographs. The Salt and Gila (Hela) river valleys are full of old ruins of early occupancy. There are artificial mounds, hundreds of feet long, extensive canals for irrigating purposes, and vast debris—all, a class of work the present races are unfamiliar with. The most wonderful, or at least the best known of all these ruins—lies three hours of stage north of the station of Casa Grande. Father Niza, who, in 1539, visited the country, heard of these ruins which were then regarded with awe and veneration by the native tribes. Coronado's people visited them in 1540, and since then many explorers have come and gone, and left descriptions to tell us what they were and are. As they exist today, they still show the towering adobe walls that are believed to have been seven stories in height.
"Some of the rooms were thirty and forty feet long. Archaeologists and ethnologists have puzzled over these ruins for ages. Today, with their remains of great irrigating ditches all about them, they present a hard nut for scientists to crack. However, we must stand amazed at the extent of these ruins. One of the great canals tapped the Salt river on the south side near the mouth of the Verde. For three and a half miles it passes through an artificial gorge in the Superstition mountains, cut out of solid rock to a depth of a hundred feet. After passing the mountains, it divides into four branches whose aggregate length is 120 miles independent of the distributing ditches. This system of canals irrigated 1,600 square miles of country. The engineering is perfect. There is not even a tradition to be found of these people. We only know that at a period fixed by scientists as 2,000 years ago, the Bradshaw mountains were active volcanoes, and the lava, making its way through Black Canon flowed into these canals. Still later, a great deluge flowed over McDowell Mountains, segregating their granite sides and depositing their wash over the upper valley and the canals to a depth of from three to five feet. This gives us testimony as to the age of these vast works, and tells us nothing of the millions of people who must once have lived here in a high state of civilization.