PREHISTOmC RUINS IN SOUTHERN COLORADO. 671 



place there is quite a large village, consisting of a series of rooms 

 opening toward the back of the crevice, and with a smooth wall in 

 front, broken only by a few small openings for air and light. Near 

 the middle is the council-chamber, a circular room, as elsewhere, 

 entered only by a very long, low, covered way, or tunnel, built of 

 masonry. This is one of the very few cases where, in similar loca- 

 tions, there was more space than was absolutely essential for mere ex- 

 istence, and the extra space was forthwith devoted to this building, 

 which shows that to it they attached great importance. 



Above this village is a crevice similar to the one in which it is 

 built, and this has been utilized as kitchen and storehouse, as is shown 

 by beans and corn which have been found there in a good state of 

 preservation. In the main village whole earthen pots have been found. 

 It is a rare occurrence to find whole vessels, though fragments of them 

 are as plentiful on the mesa as leaves in Vallambrosa's shades. 



In another place in this caiion there is a single house high up on 

 the cliffs, which rise still higher above it. It is of two stories. The 

 remarkable feature about it is that the outside is covered with plaster, 

 and painted to resemble the adjacent rock, in red and yellow grays, in 

 the hope of avoiding detection. The insides of the front rooms in 

 each story also are plastered and colored a deep maroon red, with a 

 dingy-white band. Adjacent to it is a cistern to catch and hold the 

 water which trickles down the rocks. 



The Casa del Eco is one of the largest of these cliff villages. It 

 is in the caiion of the San Juan, about twelve miles below the mouth 

 of the Montezuma, a dry canon which heads in the Sierra Abajo. The 

 canon-cliffs at this place are about two hundred feet high. A vertical 

 and horizontal section of the cliff both present the form of a semi- 

 circle ; in other words, there is here a cave, in the form of a hemi- 

 sphere. Along an horizontal curve which passes through its deepest 

 part is a stratum of harder rock, ten feet wide at its widest part, 

 making a projecting shelf, on which is perched the single row of 

 houses of which the town consists. Here the people were entirely 

 protected from attack from above, as the overhanging wall of the 

 cliff projects at least one hundred feet. Below, the slope is extremely 

 steep, making approach in that direction slow and tedious ; and, finally, 

 the shelf on which the town stands projects so far that it is wellnigh 

 impossible to get on it without outside aid. The main building of 

 the town, the council-house, is, in this case, rectangular, forty feet by 

 ten, and twelve feet high. It is built in two stories, and each is 

 divided into three rooms. The floor-beams of the second story are 

 of the cedar so common in the country at present, prepared merely by 

 stripping off the bark. Whether these houses had roofs, it is impos- 

 sible to say. In so protected a situation as this they would be of 

 little use. 



In the mortar of these houses there has been detected the imprint 



