CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN. 37 



ancient dwellings in the Rio Verde Valley was given, from his 

 own personal observations, by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, in The Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly for October, 1890. But his attention was de- 

 voted chiefly to the buildings in exposed situations of the Pueblo 

 style of architecture'; while he speaks of having seen lines of 

 black holes emerging upon the narrow ledges, which he was told 

 were cave dwellings of an extinct race. He mentions also walled 

 buildings of two kinds those occupying natural hollows or cavi- 

 ties in the face of the cliffs, and those built in exposed situations ; 

 the former, whose walls were protected by sheltering cliffs, being 

 sometimes found in almost as perfect a state of preservation as 

 when deserted by the builders, unless the torch has been applied. 

 " Another and very common form of dwellings," Dr. Mearns con- 

 tinues, " is the caves which are excavated in the cliffs by means of 

 stone picks or other instruments. They are found in all suitable 

 localities that are contiguous to water and good agricultural land, 

 but are most numerous in the vicinity of large casas grandes" 



The cave dwellings are more prominent in other accounts 

 of the region, and seem to be a very important feature in some 

 of the canons. The majority of those known are in the valleys of 

 the Colorado and the Rio Doloroso, Rio San Juan, and Rio Man- 

 cos, its tributaries. A village, if we might call it that, on the 

 San Juan, described by Mr. W. H. Holmes, is surmounted by 

 three estufas or towers, one rectangular and two circular, each 

 over a different group of cave dwellings. A short distance from 

 this ruin are the remains of another tower, built on a grander 

 scale. These structures are supposed by Mr. Holmes to have 

 been the fortresses, council chambers, and places of worship of 

 the cliff and cave dwellers. 



The great Echo Cave on the San Juan is described by Mr. W. 

 H. Jackson as situated on a bluff about two hundred feet high, 

 and as being one hundred feet deep. "The houses occupy the 

 eastern half of the cave. The first building was a small struct- 

 ure, sixteen feet long and from three to four feet wide. Next 

 came an open space, eleven feet long and nine feet deep, probably 

 a workshop. Four holes were driven into the smooth rock floor, 

 six feet apart, probably designed to hold the posts for a loom. . . . 

 There were also grooves worn into the rock where the people had 

 polished their stone implements. The main building comes next, 

 forty-eight feet long, twelve feet high, and ten feet wide, divided 

 into three rooms, with lower and upper story, each story being 

 five feet high. There were holes for the beams in the walls, and 

 window-like apertures between the rooms, affording communica- 

 tion to each room of the second story. There was one window, 

 twelve inches square, looking out toward the open country." * 



* Dr. Stephen D. Peet, in the American Antiquarian. 



