Answer: Spain did not have the money or manpower to properly defend its new territory because it was now very big. Rubí also meant that the mission settlers were too far out and should consolidate into two mission settlements.
He meant that there was a limit of land Spain had the ability it could control, rather than the amount it could actually be successful controlling, instead of it falling apart.
Historians would be most likely to study them to determine what they once held. Archaeologists would be the ones to find the clay jars and dig them up.
