54 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



lage was iu part a cliif village, iu part cavate, and in part the ordiuary 

 stoue pueblo. The valley below, especially to the southward, was prob- 

 abl}' occupied by their gardens. In the chambers among the overhang- 

 ing cliffs a great many interesting relics were found of stone, bone, and 

 wood, and many potsherds. 



About 8 miles southeast of Flagstaff, a little town on the southern 

 slope of Sau Francisco Mountain, Oak Creek enters a cailon, which 

 runs to the eastward and then southward for a distance of about 10 

 miles. The gorge is a precipitous box canon for the greater part of this 

 distance. It is cut through carboniferous rocks — sandstones and lime- 

 stones — which are here nearly horizontal. The softer sandstones rap- 

 idly disintegrate, and the harder sandstones and limestones remain. 

 Thus broad shelves are formed on the sides of the cliffs, and these 

 shelves, or the deep recesses between them were utilized, so that here is 

 a village of cliff dwellings. There are several hundred rooms alto- 

 gether. The rooms are of sandstone, pretty carefully worked and laid 

 in mortar, and the interior of the rooms was plastered. The ox)ening 

 for the chimney was usually by the side of the entrance, and the ceil- 

 iugs of the rooms are still blackened with soot and smoke. Around 

 this village, on the terrace of the caiion, great numbers of potsherds, 

 stone implements, and imi^lements of bone, horn, and wood were found; 

 and here, as in all of the other ruins mentioned, corncobs in great 

 abundance were discovered. 



In addition to the four principal ruins thus described many others are 

 found — most of them being of the ordinary inieblo type. From the 

 evidence presented it would seem that they had all been occupied at a 

 comparatively late date. They were certainly not abandoned more than 

 three or four centuries ago. 



Later in the, season the Director visited the Supai Indians of Cata- 

 ract Caiion, and was informed by them that their present home had 

 been taken up not many generations ago, and that their ancestors 

 occupied the ruins which have been described ; and they gave such a 

 circumstantial account of the occupation and of their expulsion by the 

 Spaniards, that no doubt can be entertained of the truth of their tradi- 

 tions in this respect. The Indians of Cataract Canon doubtless lived 

 on the north, east, and south of San Francisco Mountain at the time 

 this country was discovered by the Spaniards, and they subsequently 

 left their cliff aud cavate dwellings, and moved into Cataract Caiion, 

 where they now live. It is thus seen that these cliff' aud cavate dwellings 

 are not of an ancient, prehistoric time, but that they were occupied by 

 a people still existing, who also built pueblos of the common type. 



Later in the season the party visited the cavate ruins near Santa Clara, 

 previously explored by jVIr. Stevenson. Here, on the western side of 

 the Eio Grande del Norte, were found a system of volcanic peaks, con- 

 stituting what is known as the Valley Eange. To the east of these 

 jieaks, stretching far beyond the present channel of the Rio Grande, 



