282 ANNUAL 1 RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



on the left an open space of sixteen feet, and then another 

 small building. In the open space were four holes, four 

 inches in diameter and twelve deep, drilled into the rock, 

 serving evidently as post holes for a loom. All the rooms 

 have been burned out clean, so that not a vestige of wood- 

 work remains. The walls are remarkably well preserved, 

 the adobe mortar on the inside still retaining the impression 

 of the delicate lines on the thumbs and fingers of the hands 

 of the builders. Impressions of the whole of the hand were 

 frequent, showing it to be small and finely formed. Corn 

 cobs and pieces of pottery were found imbedded in the mor- 

 tar. In the centre of the larger rooms, beneath the debris, 

 were found the fire-places, circular excavations, which still 

 retained the charred wood and ashes of aboriginal fires. 



Perched up in one of the houses, under a great dome of 

 overhanging rock, that distinctly echoed every word uttered, 

 with a steep descent of over one hundred feet to the broad, 

 fertile bottoms, handsome groves, and meandering course of 

 the river, these old, old people, whom even the imagination 

 can hardly clothe with reality, must have felt a sense of 

 security that even the inroads of the barbarian Northmen 

 could hardly have ruffled. 



Omitting mention of lar^e numbers of ruins which are 

 clustered along the San Juan, the next important group dis- 

 covered for this is the first time any of these have been 

 brought before the world were those of the Rio De Chelly. 

 The party reached this point August 7th, the very hottest 

 portion of the year, in a region noted for the intensity of the 

 scorching rays which radiate from its bare plateau of white 

 sandstone. The average temperature throughout the day, 

 in the sun, was 140. The temperature of the water in the 

 river, in the midst of a rapid current, was 88, and that was 

 the coldest water to be had. 



The Rio De Chelly, for a distance of about thirty-five miles 

 above its mouth, is so caiioned, and the wash for the bed of 

 the stream is perfectly dry the greater portion of the year 

 cuts from wall rock to wall rock so frequently, that it is im- 

 possible to travel up it, except in the bed, and that is so 

 tortuous and rocky in places that it would be difficult, if not 

 impossible. Making a detour to the right, the first opening 

 into the canon was reached ten miles above. In here an in- 



