Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona | Page 5

a spring called Coyote Water by
the Apache. * * *
When we came to the valley of the Little Colorado, south of where
Winslow now is, we built houses and lived there; and then we crossed
to the northern side of the valley and built houses at Homolobi. This
was a good place for a time, but a plague of flies came and bit the
suckling children, causing many of them to die, so we left there and
traveled to Ci-pa (near Kuma spring).
Finally we found the Hopi, some going to each of the villages except
Awatobi; none went there.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY.
The Rio Verde is throughout its length a mountain stream. Rising in the
mountains and plateaus bounding two great connected valleys
northwest of Prescott, known as Big Chino valley and Williamson
valley, both over 4,000 feet above the sea, it discharges into Salt river
about 10 miles south of McDowell and about 25 miles east of Phoenix,
at an elevation of less than 1,800 feet above the sea. The fall from
Verde to McDowell, a distance of about 65 miles, is about 1,500 feet
The whole course of the river is but little over 150 miles. The small
streams which form the river unite on the eastern side of Big Chino
valley and flow thence in a southerly and easterly direction until some
12 miles north of Verde the waterway approaches the edge of the
volcanic formation known on the maps as the Colorado plateau, or
Black mesa, and locally as "the rim." Here the river is sharply deflected
southward, and flows thence in a direction almost due south to its
mouth. This part of the river is hemmed in on both sides by high
mountain chains and broken every few hundred yards by rapids and
"riffles."
Its rapid fall would make the river valuable for irrigation if there were
tillable land to irrigate; but on the west the river is hugged closely by a
mountain chain whose crest, rising over 6,000 feet above the sea, is
sometimes less than 2 miles from the river, and whose steep and rugged
sides descend in an almost unbroken slope to the river bottom. The
eastern side of the river is also closely confined, though not so closely
as the western, by a chain of mountains known as the Mazatzal range.
The crest of this chain is generally over 10 miles from the river, and the
intervening stretch, unlike the other side, which comes down to the
river in practically a single slope, is broken into long promontories and
foothills, and sometimes, where the larger tributaries come in, into
well-defined terraces. Except at its head the principal tributaries of the
Verde come from the east, those on the west, which are almost as
numerous, being generally small and insignificant.
Most of the modern settlements of the Rio Verde are along the upper
portion of its course. Prescott is situated on Granite creek, one of the

sources of the river, and along other tributaries, as far down as the
southern end of the great valley in whose center Verde is located, there
are many scattered settlements; but from that point to McDowell there
are hardly a dozen houses all told. This region is most rugged and
forbidding. There are no roads and few trails, and the latter are feebly
marked and little used. The few permanent inhabitants of the region are
mostly "cow men," and the settlements, except at one point, are
shanties known as "cow camps." There are hundreds of square miles of
territory here which are never visited by white men, except by
"cow-boys" during the spring and autumn round-ups.
Scattered at irregular intervals along both sides of the river are many
benches and terraces of alluvium, varying in width from a few feet to
several miles, and comprising all the cultivable land in the valley of the
river. Since the Verde is a mountain stream with a great fall, its power
of erosion is very great, and its channel changes frequently; in some
places several times in a single winter season. Benches and terraces are
often formed or cut away within a few days, and no portion of the river
banks is free from these changes until continued erosion has lowered
the bed to such a degree that that portion is beyond the reach of high
water. When this occurs the bench or terrace, being formed of rich
alluvium, soon becomes covered with grass, and later with mesquite
and "cat-claw" bushes, interspersed with such cottonwood trees as may
have survived the period when the terrace was but little above the river
level. Cottonwoods, with an occasional willow, form the arborescent
growth of the valley of the Verde proper, although on some of the
principal tributaries and