18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 50 
ScAFFOLD HovuskE 
This ruin, about 2 miles from the place where two large canyons 
open into Laguna creek, lies in a cavern worn in the side of a large 
butte on the left of the stream. It is appropriately called Scaffold 
House from a finely made wooden scaffold (fig. 1) which the ancients 
constructed in a vertical cleft in the cliff about 50 feet above the 
east end of the ruin. Although this scaffold is now inaccessible from 
the walls of the room below, 
all the beams and much 
of the earthen floor still 
remain. 
The construction of the 
scaffold is as follows: The 
crevice in which it lies is 
rectangular, with the long- 
large logs placed horizon- 
>= 
TLL :-| holes pecked in the sides of 
the crevice, support smaller 
beams laid across them at 
right angles. These latter 
in turn are covered with 
small sticks on which are 
laid bark and clay, leaving 
a hatchway ata point about 
midway. Theconstruction 
of this scaffold, probably 
as daring a piece of aerial 
building as can be found 
anywhere among cliff-dwel- 
lings, is so well preserved 
that it shows no sign of 
deterioration. Wecanonly 
conjecture what itsuse may 
have been, but the plausible suggestion has been made that it was 
an outlook or place of defense. 
Scaffold House is about 300 feet long. The rooms, which are in 
fine condition, extend along the side of the cliff, those situated 
midway of the length of the ruin being fairly well preserved. There 
are not far from 56 rooms still to be traced, and at least two circular 
kivas, the walls of one of which are still in fair condition. The larger 
kiva measures about 15 feet in diameter; it is subterranean, with a 
deep bench or banquette on one side. There is no trace of the pilasters 
Fig. 1. Scaffold of Scaffold House. 
est axis vertical. Several 
tally, their ends fitted into — 
ee ee 
