FEWKES] HISTORY 69 
nearly 4 feet. At the north-east corner there is a great rent, and the walls are 
entirely separated; the opening here is about 5 feet and occupies the whole of that 
angle. In the center of each side there are crumbled, out-of-shape openings, which 
on the north and west sides indicate old doors or entrances, but on the other sides 
appear to have resulted from the crumbling away of the walls. The interior shows a 
length of 52 feet north and south, and a width of 36 feet 6 inches east and west, while 
the exterior walls show in the same way a length of 61 by 45 feet 6 inches. Of course 
the exterior walls are much worn, furrowed and crumbled. In all probability they 
were originally not less than 6 feet thick. The interior walls still show above the 
débris traces of three stories, rows of small round holes indicating where the rafter poles 
had rested. In one room on the west side we were able to count them, and found 28 
holes each side of the apartment, showing an average of 6 inches apart, with holes of 
43 inches diameter. The interior room or compartment is the best-preserved part 
of the structure. It is entered only on the east side and on the lower story as now 
visible, by a small window or aperture originally about 2 feet 4 inches wide, and about 
4 feet 6 inches high, rather narrower at the top than at the base. This is the case with 
the other openings. There are six in all—two each on the interior walls to the north 
and south, one on the east wall, and one forming the entrance to middle rooms, with 
none at all on the west side. As to the exterior entrances, they appear to have been 
on the north and south fronts; those on the east and west being apertures broken by 
time and decay. There are several apertures in the interior walls, the purpose of 
which can not be ascertained. One is about 10 inches each way, though it is some- 
whatirregular in form; the other two would be about 7 inches each way. These 
apertures do not face each other, and consequently were not used to rest beams or 
rafters upon. The interior walls have been coated with some sort of cement or varnish 
which has a reddish-orange hue, and which at the present time can be peeled off by 
apenknife. There are a number of names scrawled on the inside walls, but none of 
special note. The accumulated débris almost forms a mound on the exterior, while 
inside the flooris very uneven. The interior room gives out a hollow sound. Outside 
the rains and winds are rapidly undermining the base of the walls; unless something 
be soon done to roof the structure and prop the walls, the Gila Casa Grande will be 
altogether a thing of the past. 
BANDELIER’S ACCOUNT 
Bandelier’s account of Casa Grande is one of the most instructive 
of later descriptions. This explorer was the first, since Father Font, 
to give a ground plan of what is styledin the present report Com- 
pound A (Bandelier, p. 454) in which is represented the relation of 
the surrounding wall to the main structure. He gives likewise a 
plan of the mounds and platform of Compound B, before excavations, 
showing the two pyramids. 
Bandelier’s description is as follows:1 
The walls of the Casa Grande are unusually thick, measuring 1.22 m. (4 feet), and 
even the partitions 0.92 m. (3 feet). At the Casa Blanca their thickness is only 0.50 m- 
(22 inches). 
As already said, and in other ruins between Casa Grande and Florence, 0.92 and 
0.60 m. (3 and 2 feet) were measured by me. 
The doorways are higher and wider than in northern ruins, so are the light and air 
holes. The roof and ceilings, as far as traceable, belong to the usual pueblo pattern, 
1 Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southwestern United States, Part m; in 
Papers of the Archzxological Institute of America, American Series, 1v, Cambridge, 1892. 
