14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 51 



may be regarded as the first to make Cliff Palace known to the scien- 

 tific world. Almost simultaneously with his article there appeared 

 an account of the ruin by Doctor Birdsall, followed shortly by the 

 superbly illustrated memoir of Baron Gustav Nordenskidld ' All 

 these writers adopt the name Cliff Palace, which apparently was first 

 given to the rum by Richard Wetherill, one of the claimants for its 

 discovery. Nordenskiokrs work contains practically all that was 

 known about Cliff Palace up to the beginning of the summer's field 

 work herein described. 



Mr. Chapin" thus referred to Cliff Palace in a paper read before 

 The Appalachian Mountain Club on February 13, 1890: 



After ;i long ride we reached a camping-ground at the head of a branch of 

 the left-hand fork of Cliff Canon. Hurriedly unpacking, we hobbled the horses 

 that were the most likely to stray far, and taking along our photographic kit 

 wended our way on foot toward that remarkable group of ruins of which I 

 have already spoken, and which Richard has called "the Cliff-Palace" At 

 about three o'clock we reached the brink of the caiion opposite the wonderful 

 structure. Surely its discoverer had not overstated the beauty and magnitude 

 of this strange ruin. There it was, occupying a great oval space under a grand 

 chff wonderful to behold, appearing like an immense ruined cast^ with dis- 

 mantled towers. The stones in front were broken away, but behind them rose 

 the walls of a second story; and in tlie rear of these, in under the dark cavern 

 stood the third tier of masonry. Still farther back in the gloomy recess, little 

 houses rested on upper ledges. A short distance down the cafion are' cosey 

 buildings perched in utterly inaccessible nooks. The neighboring scenery is 

 marvelous; the view down the canon to the Mnncos is alone worth the journey 

 to see. We stopped to take a few views, and then commenced the descent into 

 the gulf below. What would otherwise have been a hazardous proceeding, was 

 rendered easy by using the steps which had been cut in the wall by the builders 

 of the fortress. There are fifteen of these scouped-out hollows in the rock, which 

 covered perhaps half of the distance down the precipice. At that point the 

 cliff had probably fallen away; but luckily for our purpose, a dead tree leaned 

 against the wall, and descending into its branches we reached the base of the 

 parapet. In the bed of the canon is a secondary gulch, which required care in 

 descending. We hung a rope or lasso over some steep, smooth ledges, and let 

 ourselves down by it. We left it hanging there and used it to ascend by on our 

 return. 



Nearer approach Increased our interest in the marvel. From the south end 

 of the ruin, which we first attained, trees hide the northern walls, yet the view 

 is beautiful. We remained long, and ransacked the structure from one end to 

 the other. According to Richard's measurements, the space covered by the 

 building is 425 feet long, SO feet high in front, and 80 feet deep in the centre. 

 One hundred and twenty-four rooms have been traced on the ground floor, and 

 a thousand people may have lived within its confines. So many walls have 

 fallen that it is difficult to reconstruct the building in imagination; but the 

 photographs show that there must have been many stories. There are towers 

 and circular rooms, square and rectangular enclosures; yet all with a seeming 

 symmetry, though in some places the walls look as if they were put up as addi- 

 tions in later periods. One of the towers is barrel-shaped ; other circles are true. 



"Appalachia, vi, 28-30, May, 1890, Boston, 1892. 



