F. GEOGEAPHY. 279 



any habitation be found in the sterile, rocky gorges any 

 way removed from cultivatable ground. Their ideas of 

 good farming land would hardly come up to that of an East- 

 ern farmer, yet a strip of bottom land only fifty yards in 

 width at the bottom of their deep canons would yield maize 

 enough to subsist quite a town. The supposition that they 

 were an agricultural people is strengthened by the fact that 

 in the vicinity of any group of ruins there are also a num- 

 ber of little " cubby-holes," too small for habitations, and 

 very evidently intended for "caches," or granaries, and the 

 large towns contain small apartments that must have been 

 used for the same purpose. 



The only known water in the country, short of the San 

 Juan, over forty miles distant, was on the Hovenweep, near 

 the town which was discovered last year, thus necessitating 

 the retraversiug of so much of the country. A day spent in 

 some of the tributary cafions developed no remains of any 

 importance, although every little side caiion contains traces 

 of former occupation by the town-builders. To the west of 

 the Hovenweep is a high, level plateau separating it from 

 the canons of the Montezuma, and running north and south 

 from the waters of the San Juan to those of the Dolores. 

 Upon this were found the remains of many circular towers, 

 all of about the same size twelve to fifteen feet in diam- 

 eter. They are generally almost entirely obliterated ; but in 

 two or three cases portions of the w T all twelve to fifteen 

 feet high, of well-built masonry, were found. This arid sand- 

 stone mesa, a thousand feet above the surrounding valleys, 

 does not contain a spring or any water whatever, except 

 such as collects in the water-pockets during a shower. The 

 soil upon its surface is thin, and in places is blown off clean to 

 the bed rock. Grass, cedar, and artemisia flourish; in fact, 

 it is most excellent grazing land, and, as cultivation was out 

 of the question, these people must have had herds of sheep or 

 goats, which the} 7 brought up here to graze during the win- 

 ter months, just as the Utes and Navajos do at the present 

 time, and these towers were built as places of refuge or resi- 

 dence for their herders. 



Eight and ten miles below the Hovenweep town are two 

 groups of ruins worthy of note. The first is built upon an 

 almost perfectly rectangular block of sandstone which oc- 



