308 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



roughly dressed; but the smoothest side of each piece was laid to the 

 surface with great care. We saw no one piece in all the ruins which 

 was over a loot in length. The mortar was made from the ordinary 

 soil found upon the spot ; it affords but a poor cement to resist the 

 action of the elements and the ordinary ravages of time. 



The walls of the cathedral are now about thirty feet in height. It 

 was estimated, from the great quantity of stones which have fallen 

 down, forming a sort of talus both within the walls and outside of 

 them, that, originally, this building was all of fifty feet in height. 

 There is a small room to the right as you enter the cathedral, and 

 another room, which is very large, and which communicates with the 

 main body of the building by a door at the lelt of the transept. There 

 was also communication between this large room and the monastery, 

 or system of cloisters, which are attached to the cathedral. The 

 chapel is one hundred and thirty feet from the cathedral. This building 

 is one hundred and eighteen feet long, outside, and thirty-two in width ',. 

 its walls are three feet eight inches in thickness ; it is apparently in a 

 better state of preservation than the cathedral, but yet none of the 

 former wood-work remains in it. 



A short distance from the chapel there is an enclosure, which we 

 supposed was the ancient cemetery. 



The remains of the town are but heaps of stones, with here and 

 there some evidences of narrow streets running nearly east and west, 

 and north and south. Through these stones pieces of beams and sticks 

 of wood are seen to project; these indicate, by moss and otherwise, 

 that they are of very great antiquity ; they are bleached white by the 

 weather, and are deeply gnawed by the tooth of time. 



We saw some deep pits, which were circular, ' and walled around 

 like wells; we believed them to be the remains of cisterns — they were 

 not deep enough lor wells ; some have concluded that they were 

 estufas. Two hundred and ninety feet north of the cathedral there 

 are evident traces of an estanque; this, as well as the cisterns, was 

 probably made to collect the rain-water which ran from the different 

 buildings. 



Toward the east we saw a well defined road, which kept the ridge 

 for a few hundred yards, and then turned off" toward the southeast, 

 where all further vestiges of it are lost in the sand. Where it is the 

 most plainly marked along the summit of the ridge some large cedar 

 trees are growing directly in the middle of it; these trees look to be 

 very old indeed. 



In every direction about the ruins we found great quantities of broken 

 pottery, many specimens of which we have collected to take to Albu- 

 querque. Some of it is handsomely marked and well glazed. We 

 also found several stones which were evidently once used as matates. 

 These matates are in use to this day, to rub boiled corn upon until it 

 becomes a kind of dough, suitable to be kneaded into cakes called 

 tortillas. We have selected two, which we shall take home with us. 

 These prove to us that the ancient inhabitants of Gran Quivira knew 

 the use of corn as an article of food. 



There is no sign that the ground in the vicmity has ever been culti- 

 vated, and no mark whatever of irrigating ditches. Indeed, an acequia, 



