EEPOET OF THE SECRETARY. 53 



than Cliff Palace. One evidence of its antiquity, however, was 

 observed, namely, a cedar tree growing from the top of the highest 

 walls was found to have 360 annual rings of growth, indicating that 

 it sprouted a few years after Coronado led his expedition into the 

 Southwest in 1540. 



The builders of the Sun Temple are supposed by Dr. Fewkes to 

 have been the former cliff dwellers of the neighboring canyons. 

 As to its purpose, he is of the opinion that the building was used pri- 

 marily for worship, but that like other temples among primitive 

 peoples it was intended secondarily as a place of refuge in case of 

 attack, and for the storage of provisions. The impression of a fossil 

 palm leaf on the corner stone at the southwestern angle is believed to 

 mark a shrine where rites to the sky or sun god were performed long 

 before the temple was built. It is this supposed shrine that sug- 

 gested the name for the edifice. 



On the completion of the excavation and repair of the Sun Temple, 

 Dr. Fewkes similarly treated Oak-tree House, a cliff dwelling in the 

 precipice of Fewkes Canyon above which stands the Sun Temple. 

 A collection of artifacts found in this dwelling was gathered in the 

 course of the excavation and later deposited in the National Museum, 



En route to Washington, Dr. Fewkes visited the so-called " Buried 

 City of the Panhandle," on Wolf Creek in Ochiltree County, Tex., 

 which had been reported to the bureau by residents of the neighbor- 

 hood and had become locally celebrated. The remains examined 

 hardly justify the name given to the site, which in former days was 

 used as an encampment by wandering Indians rather than by sed- 

 entary people. Dr. Fewkes's attention was drawn also to a supposed 

 artificial wall which gave name to Eockwall, not far from Dallas, 

 Tex., but on examination this was found to be a natural sandstone 

 formation. 



Dr. Fewkes returned to Washington in November and immedi- 

 ately prepared a report on his sunmier's work in the Mesa Verde 

 National Park for the use of the Department of the Interior, an 

 advance summary of which, issued by the department, was widely 

 published in the newspapers. An account of the excavation and 

 repair of Oak-tree House and Painted House, the largest cliff ruins 

 in Fewkes Canyon, was also prepared for publication. On the com- 

 pletion of these tasks Dr. Fewkes devoted the remainder of his lim- 

 ited time to the preparation of the extended memoir on The Abo- 

 rigines of the West Indies for publication in a report of the bureau. 

 In June he again departed for the field with the view of initiating, 

 before the close of the fiscal year, an inquiry into the archaeological 

 evidences bearing on Hopi legends that ancestors of the clans of the 

 ancient pueblo of Sikyatki lived at Tebungki, or Beshbito, an oval 

 ruin 15 miles east of Keams Canyon, Ariz. Dr. Fewkes visited and 

 73839°— SM 1916 5 



