616 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 (ETH. ANN. 17 
that side for ready access to upper rooms. By a series of platforms or 
terraces, which were in fact the roofs of the houses, one mounted to 
the upper stories which formed the apex of the pueblo. 
On the western, northern, and eastern sides the slope is more gradual, 
and while there are many obscurely marked house plans visible over 
the surface, even quite near the top of the elevation, they are doubtless 
the remains of single-story structures. This leads me to suspect that 
when Awatobi was built it was reared on a mound of soil or sand, and 
not on the solid rock surface of the mesa. The configuration, then, 
shows that the pueblo sloped by easy decline to the plain to the north, 
but rose more abruptly from the south and west. There are low extra- 
mural mounds to the north, showing that on this side the dwellings 
were composed of straggling chambers. The general character of the 
rooms on the level slope at the western side of old Awatobi is shown 
in the accompanying illustration (plate cx). The peculiarity of these 
rooms appears by a comparison with the many-story chambers of the 
southern declivity of the ruin. Extending the excavations four feet 
below the surface we encountered a floor which rested on solid earth, 
and there were no signs of walls beneath it. This was without doubt 
a single-story house, the roof of which had disappeared. The sur- 
rounding surface of the ground is level, but the tops of adjoining walls 
of rooms may readily be traced near by. 
The room was rectangular, twice as long as wide, and without pas- 
sageways into adjoining chambers. The northern, eastern, and western 
walls were unbroken, and there was nothing peculiar in the floor of 
these sections; but we found a well-preserved, elevated settlé at the 
southern side, extending two-thirds of the length of the main wall toa 
small side wall, inclosing a square recess, the object of which is 
unknown to me. 
All walls were smoothly plastered, and the floor was paved with flat 
stones set in adobe. The singular inclosure at the southern corner 
could not be regarded as a fireplace, for there was no trace of soot upon 
its walls. I incline to the belief that it may have served as a closet, 
or possibly as a granary. Its arrangement is not unlike that in certain 
modern rooms at Walpi. 
An examination of the masonry of the rooms of the western mounds 
of Awatobi shows that the component stones were in a measure dressed 
into shape, which was, as a rule, cubical. In this respect they differ 
from the larger stones of which the mission walls were built, for in this 
masonry the natural cleavage is utilized for the face of the wall. 
The differences between the masonry of the mission and that of the 
room in which we found a chief buried were very marked. In the 
former, elongated slabs of stone, without pecking or dressing, were 
universal, while in the latter the squared stones were laid in courses 
and neatly fitted together. The partitions likewise are narrower, being 
not more than 6 inches thick. 
