These structures ranged in extent from about four hundred to twelve hundred feet in external measurement and could furnish a home to from two hundred to eight hundred or a thousand Indians, and, in one case at least, many more.
In the next cut we have represented the different styles of masonry employed in the pueblos of this valley. It varied all the way from careful piling of big and little stones, and of alternate layers of such materials, to very good masonry indeed. Speaking of it, Mr. Jackson says, “It is the most wonderful feature in these ancient habitations, and is in striking contrast to the careless and rude methods shown in the dwellings of the present pueblos. The material, a grayish-yellow sandstone, breaking readily into thin laminae, and was quarried from the adjacent exposures of that rock. The stones employed average about the size of an ordinary brick, but as the larger pieces were irregular in size, the interstices were filled in with very thin plates of sandstone, or rather built in during its construction; for by no other means could they be placed with such regularity and compactness. So closely are the individual pieces fitted to each other that at a little distance no jointage appears, and the wall bears every indication of being a plain, solid surface.”
Besides these important ruins, there are a great many others not especially different from those previously described. We can not state positively that these ruins are of a later date than those of the North; we think they are. From the character of the structures, we are more inclined to class them with the great pueblos of the Rio Grande, Puerco, and Zuñi. By examining the map we see that the Rio Chaco would afford a convenient route for them in their migration from the San Juan Valley.
It may be of some interest to notice one of the rooms in this pueblo. Simpson says it is walled up with alternate layers of large and small stones, the regularity of the combination producing a very pleasant effect. Mr. Morgan thinks this room will compare not unfavorably with any of equal size to be found in the more imposing ruins of the South. We must notice the ceiling. The probabilities are that the Rio Chelly, further to the west, afforded another line of retreat. Some ruins are found scattered up and down the river or cañon, which we will not stop to describe. Off to the south-west are the inhabited towns or pueblos of the Moquis, who, as we have seen, have a tradition that they came from the north.
There are some ruins found in the south-western part of Arizona which must be described in a general survey of the ruins of the Pueblo country. The river Gila, with numerous tributaries, is the most important stream in that portion of the State. It is in just such a section as we would expect to find ruins, if anywhere. Coronado, as we have seen, invaded the country about three hundred and fifty years ago. At the time of his visit this was then a ruin, for his historian describes one ruin as “a single ruined and roofless house . . . the work of civilized people who had come from afar.”28 This gives us a point as to the antiquity of some of the ruins in the Gila Valley. As we shall see, there is every reason to suppose that this section was at one time a thickly inhabited one.