Casa Grande Ruin | Page 3

of the early settlers of eastern United States.
[Footnote 1: Papers Arch?ol. Inst. of Amer., Amer. ser., iv, Cambridge, 1892, p. 453 et sec.]
In 1888 Mr. F. H. Cushing presented to the Congrès International des Américanistes[1] some "Preliminary notes" on his work as director of the Hemenway southwestern archeological expedition. Mr. Cushing did not describe the Casa Grande, but merely alluded to it as a surviving example of the temple, or principal structure, which occurred in conjunction with nearly all the settlements studied. As Mr. Cushing's work was devoted, however, to the investigation of remains analogous to, if not identical with, the Casa Grande, his report forms a valuable contribution to the literature of this subject, and although not everyone can accept the broad inferences and generalizations drawn by Mr. Cushing--of which he was able, unfortunately, to present only a mere statement--the report should be consulted by every student of southwestern archeology.
[Footnote 1: Berlin meeting, 1888; Compte-Rendu, Berlin, 1890, p. 150 et seq.]
The latest contribution to the literature of the Casa Grande is a report by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes,[1] also of the Hemenway expedition, under the title "On the present condition of a ruin in Arizona called Casa Grande." Two magnificent illustrations are presented, engravings from photographs, showing general views of the ruin, as well as a number of views depicting details, and the ground plan presented at the end of the report is the best so far published. It is unfortunate that this author was not able to give more time to the study of the ruin; yet his report is a valuable contribution to our knowledge concerning the Casa Grande.
[Footnote 1: Jour. of Amer. Ethn. and Arch., Cambridge, 1892, vol. ii, page 179 et seq.]

DESCRIPTION.
THE CASA GRANDE GROUP.
The Casa Grande has been variously placed at from 2 leagues to 2 miles south of Gila river. The writer has never traversed the distance from the ruin to the river, but the ruin is about a mile from Walker ranch, which is well known in that neighborhood, and about half a mile from the river. This question, however, is not of much importance, as the ruin is easily found by anyone looking for it, being located directly on one of the stage routes from Casa Grande station, on the Southern Pacific railroad, to Florence, Arizona, and about 9 miles below, or west of, the latter place.
The name Casa Grande has been usually applied to a single structure standing near the southwestern corner of a large area covered by mounds and other débris, but some writers have applied it to the southwestern portion of the area and even to the whole area. The latter seems the proper application of the term, but to avoid confusion, where both the settlement as a whole and that portion which has formed the theme of so many writers are referred to, the settlement will be designated as the Casa Grande group, and the single structure with standing walls as the Casa Grande ruin.
Probably no two investigators would assign the same limits to the area covered by the group, as the margins of this area merge imperceptibly into the surrounding country. The accompanying map (plate LI) shows this area as interpreted by the writer. The surface covered by well defined remains, as there shown, extends about 1,800 feet north and south and 1,500 feet east and west, or a total area of about 65 acres.
[Illustration: Pl. LI: Map of Casa Grande Group.]
The Casa Grande ruin, as the term is here used, occupies a position near the southwestern corner of the group, and it will be noticed that its size is insignificant as compared with that of the entire group, or even with the large structure in the north-central part of it. The division of the group into northern and southern portions, which has been made by some writers, is clearly shown on the map; but this division is more apparent than real. The contour interval on the map is one foot--a sufficiently small interval to show the surface configuration closely and to bring out some of its peculiarities. Depressions are shown by dotted contours. It will be noticed that while most of the mounds which mark the sites of former structures rise but 10 feet or less above the surrounding level, the profiles vary considerably, some being much more smoothed off and rounded than others, the former being shown on the map by even, "flowing" contours, while the latter are more irregular; and it will be further noticed that the irregularity reaches its maximum in the vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin proper, where the ground surface was more recently formed, from the fall of walls that were standing within the historical period.
External appearance is a very unsafe criterion of age, although in some cases, like