------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: MEXICAN OVENS, USED PRINCIPALLY BY THE PUEBLO INDIANS.] Occasional pieces of copper are found in the Casas Grandes ruins, but no iron, and the cutting instruments of the original occupants were made of obsidian, as were their arrows. Pottery still strews the ground about, but there are no evidences to support the old legends of magnificence with which early travelers invested the so-called palace. But there are plainly to be seen ruins of a great wall that once enclosed the city, on which were sentinel towers rising several feet above the main wall, thus proving that this was not entirely a land of peace, nor do appearances indicate that it was one of plenty. The Apaches, no doubt, harried the less war-like Moqui, who were at last driven southward, and left ruins of similar cities along their gradual retreat from Utah to Mexico. Professor A. L. Heister, the antiquarian, who has made a long and patient investigation of the pueblo ruins in southwest New Mexico, thus writes of his discoveries: “Within a radius of five miles of St. Joseph, New Mexico, I have discovered several hundred ruins of the habitations of prehistoric man. In these ruins—the walls of which are built of undressed stone and cement—are found the remains of huge cisterns; walls of fortification; queer implements of bone and stone; beautifully designed, carved or painted pottery, together with odd and artistic pictures, characters and symbols cut upon large rocks in cañons near, and with such nicety of taste as serve to strike the beholder with wonder and admiration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: ADOBE VILLAGE OF PUEBLO INDIANS, NEW MEXICO.—The word pueblo in Spanish means village, and this term was applied by the early Spanish explorers to several powerful tribes of Indians whom they found living in adobe villages like the one so beautifully photographed on this page. They had evidently occupied such abodes for centuries before the Spaniards came, and they have not departed from the custom up to the present time. As the increase of a family requires more room, additions are made at the top of the house, and thus we find their homes built in tiers, one above the other, the upper stories being reached by rude ladders, as shown in the illustration. The baking oven, seen at the left of the photograph, is a village institution, and it has been adopted almost universally by the present rural population of Mexico. The Pueblo Indians are rapidly disappearing, their entire number being now less than 1000. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------