The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 5, 1897, Page 17

all DECF’\I B ER 5 1897. BvxLDINc,é* CONTA\ THE PR NING == -2 IMITIVE = TIREPLACES It is a common bel people that the xistence on their own little island. “Our homes and ou resides’’ ayings, as if they had p ot both words. It may be true, as iar as the continent of »pe 1s concerned, that England has & r claim to reside” and ‘‘chimney ut when it comes to America 1t matter, for there are s for belief that fireplaces first | me into existence on our own land. All over the Sonthwest there are hun- of ruins of old houses containing sole owner- z00d ground recs laces similar the build- th yiury. The -~ of ~ Mexico and the a, as well 2s the Zun1 and Ya good builders of fire- places. and no building is considered fin- ished until it is supplied with an ap paratus for cooking or heating or both. is a common these people were taught to build these fireplaces by the invading Spaniards, who a i f among English fireplace first came into | 18 one of | It | matter of statement that| " FIREPLACE WITH OVTDOOR, OVEMN AN ISLETA CHIMNEY MADE OF OLD WATER JARE followed close on the heels of Cortez. To uphold this statement it is pointed | of the years. | out that at one time the Indian dwellings | This iseasily possible when it is consid- were supplied only with a hole in the roof | ered that all of these buildings thatare | for the egress of smoke from a fire that | Still in exis ence are without roofs. There | was built in the middle of the room | are holes in the walls to show that there on the floor. But this system is| Were roofs on them once. [u fact, still in vogue in such houses where 1t is | the most expedient and practical, which | | would seem to indicate that the Indians | | were not shown much in ihe way of im- provement by the Spaniards. | Whatever there may be in the-e state- ments the fact remains that there are still | to be found the ruins of old fireplaces in what huave been acknowledged to bo pre- historic structures. That is thay are supposed to be from 5000 to 10,000 vears o.d. Among the ruins of the cliff-dwellers in a small canyon not far from Durango, | Colo., I saw several well-preserved struc- tures inside the buildings that could be nothing elss but firep'aces. It is truethat wood were found in these holes, indicating plainly that they once held the coveriug of the structure, The little structures referred to might be described as small boxes made of stone and cement. They were in some instances built in corners and in others along the sides of the walis. The portions nding wera from one oot to three feet nand had all the semblance of fire- places. st tures in the ruins in different parts of Arizona. In the Canyon de Chelly and in the Salt River country I have seen the same things. In a stray little ruin in still | I have observed the same sort of struc- | | no perfectly defined chimneys were to be | found, but they may have existed at one New Mexico I have also seen them. They all showed the same characteristics, and ATTEMFT A ARCH —_— | have been used for anything else but in one | or two instances small pieces of rotton | supports to | | building fires in. Ii these fireplaces ever had chimneys they were bui't up along the inner wall of the house and so could have fallen down very easily. There is certainly enough debris scattered around ferent places 10 make this plausible. But still stronger is the indication ihat there were once chimneys there, and built just that way, in the fact that the aboriginal Indian tribes all build chimneys that way at the present time. A close study of the Indian fireplaces of the present time and the fireplaces of the old ruins shows a remarkabie similarity in sbape and si Here, of course, res mblance ceases, for the old ruins are in such a bzd condition as to leave noth- But that is enough to show conclusively what they were used | ing but an outiine. for. the dif- | i \ | time and been obliterated by the ravages | it hardly seems possible that they could | | the | | knew how 10 do €0 when their race wasin its infancy. Certain it 1s that some of their oldest buildings bave been standing for centuries, and many of these contain | fireplaces and of a style similar to those built at the present time. This is a strong indication that the work of build- ing bas not teen learred in a couvle o hundred years. Archmologists cun find no more interest- ing stuuy than these old fireplaces of the aboriginal tribes of Arizona and New Mexico. There is a strong similarity be- tween them, and yet each is so d:fferent from the ers in detail that there is no simi aruy at all. Another teature of the fact that same feelin these fireplaces is the Inaians e much the for them thut English-speak- ing people have for theirs. “Sested by his own fireside’” means no more to a Euro- vean than it does to our aborigine. It is when seated in front of a roaring The Indians of the present day do not | blaze that the old man loves to tell stories give the Spaniards any credit for teaching | to bis grandchildren. Itishere the legends them to buila fireplaces, but say that they | of the tribe are repeated and transmitted FIREPLACE MADE oF SLABS oF SLATE from generation to generation. Itis bere that all important fetes of the winter sea- son are held and all ceremonies performed. The Indians love the fireside, and make it | one of the most important parts of their | bomes. The accompanying group of drawings will serve to give an idea of what these vrimitive fireplaces look like. Most of the drawings are made from original skelches, buta few are from the report of the Bu- reap of Ethnology, so that there is nc doubt of their authenticity. The buildings of the Indians are all very much alike and similar in form to the sketch in the upper lefi-hund corner. This is from a group in the ancient city of | Laguna in New Mexico. Siretching across the two Territories, from Albuquerque in New Mexico to the Needles west of Arizona, is a chain of these builaings. Some are constructed of stone and adobe, but the greater number are of stone held together by a strong cement. The buildings are invariably square in the corners. The yictures almost explain themselves as faras the ganeral appearanceof the fire- places gor s. These are constructed of stones | held in place with cement and plastzred | over with the same material. In some of them larga slabs of stone are used for the sides. A hood hanging over the tireplace acts as a guile to the smoke so th:t itis sure to reach the outer air. Desert greasewocd is the principal fuel | used in these old fireplaces. Slabs of stones are aiso in many cases made to form the sides of the fireplaces. To use these slabs for ovens is the rule rather than the exception. In this case the stones are simply piled into the shape of a bux and held in place with cement. In many cases the chimney from these fireplaces is simply a bole in the roof, but frequently it extends upward many feet. Sometimes old water-jars are used to in- crease the height. With the bottoms broken out they are piled one on top of another, eventually creating one of the most picturesque objects of the whole Southwest. WiLL SPaRKs. -SOME STRANGE STORIE ONCE In many odd places throughout the » Southwest are to be AMERICA' S found silent and mel- EA ancholy ruins of | GR TEST smelters and ore re-, GOLD NHNE. ducing plants now crumbling into rs; now they are the properiy of an ; who shoull think it worth his while ¢ freichit on the old lumber and iron ork. Of them all, rielancholy semi-ruin 1s that of the old ulture at the town of Wickenburg in C ntral Arizona. it is stil worked in a small way. and ten men find employment inits wonderful labyrinths of drifts. In 70's theVulture was making mil- It made at least thirteen of and i half the stories told of it be not less ihan twenty miliions were from the mine, which never was ounted for in the books. It was loca- y Henry Wickenburg in 1863, and became the greatest gold mine in the The old workings give m g1 Upited States. eWience of an almost fabulous vre de-| vo$t that was worked to the utmost. The mine was always considered a man-trap, Irowever, and not less than twenty men D are known to have been buried beneath its walls of precious ore. In the heyday of Senator Tavor's prosperity he pur- ed the Vulture and explored it scien- titically, onlv to find that nothing re- mziued of its vast richness but the pillars of rock that supported acres and acres of underground chambers aud vauits. In ardar to naruy reunburse bumsell for bis de- | Once they were famous wealth-pro- | perhaps the most | The latter only smiled at the agony of the gringos. It was learned afterward that he had been paid five adobe dollars for remaining obaurate to the gringos’ | expenditure on the property Senmor Ta- bor had these pillars *shot ou’’ and con- verted into bullion, but this left the old | Vaulture penniiess and an unsupported crippie. To-day the entire mine lscnv-‘\abpesl. This was a fortnight ago. At ping in and a total collanse, annihilating ) iniervals the sounos of the Garcia have | those below and utting cff all avenues of | been repeated, and their effects have been so heavily experienced in the United States that an inurnational rupture is in- escape, is a momentary possibility—even | probability. % e | deed imminent. | TROUBLE An inlernuwnul‘ | d ficulty is immi- HOW A A Mexican inhab- { ON THE nent at Nogales. itant of the native One-balf of this| GOAT MAY guarter oi Pheeix, SOUTHWEST city lies in Mexico, Ariz., lies at the > the other half in Ari- CAUSE point of death from i LINE. zona. International | sheer fright, brought street is the bound- DEATH. avout by the vision ary line between the two sovereign powers. | | The trouble is over sound—sound made in Mexico and felt in the United States— both made and felt when other people are trying to sleep. The sound originates from the Garcia orchestra, and is purely a Sonora production. The Garcia plants |itself in a little alley leading off Inter- national street, near Nelson avenue, abont 10:30 . M. Then the sound begins. 1t may be ravishing to Mexican ears, for the Garcia is equipped with brand-new string instruments recently purchased at Tucson. On the first night City Marshal Roberts was cailed upon bv the citizens of Ameri- can Nogales. But he was powerless to abate the nnisance without first consult- ing the Secretary of State at Washington. Several angry cit zens of the United States gathered at the border and beseeched | can who is dying from fright at the the Mexican policeman on the other | vision is one of those whose bullets siae of the sireet 1o suppress tue Garcia. | pierced the white rag that floated from his of a billygoat on a dark night under unusual circumstances. Het ought he saw a ghost down near the rauiiroad track, and a great many other Mexicans who live in the neighborhood were quite sure they were being haunted by a ghoulish apparition. The awesome thing caused great terror in the vicinity. Brave men went out and shot off their six-barreled guns at it, while tiembling women and children locked and barred the vision from their sense of seeing. ‘The brave men shot too high, it was after- ward discovered, for the goat had a piece of white muslin caughton its horns. The traveling showman who owns the goat is glad they shot so nigh, for he says it tcok bhim long monihs to train tuat goat to strut about on his hind legs. The Mexi- ) QF FRE GRERE SOUTHVEST goatship’s horns. He was & nervy man and a dead shot, so when he fi ed six times and still the hideous wraith ad- vanced upon him he lay down and countec his beads in a colda sweat. found him he was unconscious. ing white man disclosed the unconscious hoax. Tte scared Mexican may recover, but it is doubtful HAUNTED BY A death ot Philip Lash- "MURDERER'S les. the colored pri- vate in the United GHOST. states troops at Fort Huachuca, who killed the sergeant of his company and was afterward legally executed at Tucson, has been baunted by the shade of the mur- derer, Ellsworth has been ill for some months, and is now convalescing., He came into the Sheriff’s office at Tucson the other day and told Sheriff Leather- wood a weird and mournful tale. He said that every night since Lashley's death, which occurred last spring, the face of that negro murderer bas appeared at his pedside. It was that whicn made im ill. Try as he might, al: s night hours were haunted by that grinning negro head. He tried the expediency of sleeping in the daytime and work- ing at night, but this made no difference. Then the fever came, and the negro face was at his bedside all the time. He savs he believes it will never leave him. Elisworth is by no A scoff- Eb Elisworth, who was foreman of the means a superstitious man. In fact, be | the firing of many cannons at some dm-l worth's death he was almost bald, being a | 20, and winter May 20. When they | jury that decreed the | is quite a materialist in his way and has tried to explain phenomenon along pbysical lines, but has failed 10 account for itatail. He says he does not fear to see the face; it has no terrors for him, for at all times he has the consciousness that 1t cannot harm him. The Lashley trial was celebrated. The Danish Government was interested in it, because Lashley was born on the island of St. Croix. Much internatioral correspondence was had be- fore the execution took place, and then it was remembered that Lashley, at the end of his trial, had stood up 1n the court- room and solemnly and fearfully vowed to haunt the Judge and the jurymen who were responsible for the death sentence pronounced upon him. Neither Judge Bethune nor any o:her of the jurymen have as yet seen anything of the negroid wraith. A ROARING One of the strang- est stories that trav- MOUNTAIN elers have brought back from the won- IN THE derful land of the Cocopahs in Lower COCOPAHS. Califcrn a is that of the roaring moun- calied by the Indians “Ei Bramador.” It is near the mouth of the Colorado, has an altitude of 2500 fret and is quite near the famous su- phur mines now being developed by a big Pittsburg syndicate. As often, sometimes, as twice in every twenty-four hours, and seldom less than once in that time, a (re- mendous booming, dull and heavy, like tain, tance, is heard for miles around. It rever- berates and echoes for several minutes from prak to peak, and the Indians call it the voice of the native spirits. It is in scientific parlance the souna of explosions that are continually taking place mn a huge volcano that is active internally, although there are no outward evidences of eruptions. The theory advanced isthat accumulations of gases inside the volcano find vent ihrough the volcano or mud volcanoes many miles distant. REDWOOD OUTLASTS A very peculiar siate of affairs was disclosed the other day at Tempe, Ariz., STEEL when Gabriel Cosner dug up the bodies of NAILS. John Hollingsworth and Captain Harris and removed them from the old buryine- ground at Austin place to the Double Butte Cemetery. The wooden portion of both the coffins, which were made of poli-hed redwood, showed no signs of decay, while the metallic name plates, the steel nails and screws and the handles of the caskets were completely eaten away Ly rust unti! there was nothing left of them but crumbling iron rust. The outer boxes in wkhich the caskets were encased were mad+ of pine wood and had crum- bled into sawdust. Itis not known how long the bodies had been buried, but the relative lasting qualities of the materials in question sprak for themselves. A not unusual phenomenon wa- again observed in this instance. At the time of Hollings- very old man. When disinterred there was an extraordinary growth of hair on the bead and the beard had grown tillit reacbed below his waist. A TRUE In the weird and mysterious land of the Cocopahs in Low= er Cabfornia 1s a stream in which the most impatient of WALTON- would-be fishermen coud hardly fail to | ITES. make a good catch at | any hour of the day or night. This is the Rio Hardy, that flows out of a land of a thousand volea- noes and down the mountain side. My- riads of fish swarm this stream. They are so numerous, in truth, that it is diffi- cult to navigate a boat in the river for their presence. They are mostlv mullets, and are said to possess a very delicate fla- vor, tender flesh, with the minimum of small bones. This is the way the native Indians catch them: They push their canoes out in the streara on a moonless night and plant a big torch in the center of their boat. Then they sit still and wait an hour or so, until the canoe is nearly filled with the floundering mullets which { huve leaped inside, attracted by the light of the toren. The few white men who have enjoyed the privilege of fishing 1n the Rio Hardy say the fish are so easily caught that one soon tires of the sport. ——————— PARADISE FOR THE In Australia <pring Begins August 20, summer November 20, autumn Febroary