ANCIENT D WELLING S OF THE RIO VERDE VALLEY. 749 



Another and very common form of dwellings is the caves, 

 which are excavated in the cliffs by means of stone picks or other 

 implements. They are found in all suitable localities that are 

 contiguous to water and good agricultural land, but are most nu- 

 merous in the vicinity of large casas grandes. Most of them are 

 in limestone cliffs, as the substratum of sandstone is not as com- 

 monly exposed in the canons and cliffs, but many cavate dwell- 

 ings are in sandstone. 



The additional remains observed by me are mounds in the 

 vicinity of ancient dwellings, extensive walls of stone and mortar, 

 large quantities of stone implements and fragments of broken 

 pottery, acequias or irrigating ditches, ancient burial grounds, 

 and hieroglyphic inscriptions on stones and cliffs — the last two 

 to be doubtfully referred to the cliff-dwellers.. 



Fig. 1. — Casa Grande in Kight Bluff of a Canon entering the Verde Eiver from the 

 East, about twelve miles southeast of Fort Verde. 



Of the cliff-houses, as contradistinguished from those of Pueblo 

 pattern, many excellent examples are found in the Verde region. 

 One, into which I was probably the first white man to set foot, is 

 built in the right wall of a deep canon, between Hackberry Flat 

 and the Rio Verde. It was found when searching for a still larger 



