fewkes] PREHISTORIC VILLAGES, CASTLES, AND TOWERS 23 



I'.i ANciiAHi) Ruin 



Several years ago private parties constructed at Manitou, near 

 Colorado Springs, a cliff-dwelling on the combined plan of Spruce- 

 tree House and Cliff Palace. The rocks used for that purpose were 

 transported from a large mound on the Blanchard ranch near Leba- 

 non, in the Montezuma Valley, at the head of Hartman's draw, 

 about 6 miles south of Dolores. Two mounds (pi. 2, a, b), about 

 three-quarters of a mile apart, are all that now remain of a consider- 

 able village; the other smaller mounds, reported by pioneer settlers, 

 have long since been leveled by cultivation. As both of these mounds 

 have been extensively dug into to obtain stones, the walls thai 

 remain standing show much mutilation. The present condition of 

 the largest Blanchard mound, as seen from its southwest angle, is 

 shown in plate 2, b. About half of the mound, now covered with 

 a growth of bushes, still remains entire, exposing walls of fine masonry, 

 on its south side. The rooms in the buried buildings are hard to 

 make out on account of this covering of vegetation and accumu- 

 lated debris; but the central depressions, supposed to be kivas, almost 

 always present in the middle of mounds in this district, show that 

 the structure of Blanchard Ruin follows the pure type. 



Ruins at Aztec Spring 



The mounds at Aztec Spring (pi. 1, b), situated on the eastern 

 flank of Ute Mountain, at a site looking across the valley to the 

 west end of Mesa Verde, were described forty years ago by W. W. 

 Jackson 1 and Prof. W. H. Holmes. 2 The descriptions given by both 

 these pioneers are quoted at length for the reason that subsequent 

 authors have added little from direct observation since that time, 

 notwithstanding they have been constantly referred to and the 

 illustrations reproduced. 



As a result of a short visit, the author is able to add the few fol- 

 lowing notes on the Aztec Spring mounds. The ruin is a village 

 consisting of a cluster of unit pueblos of the pure type in various 

 stages of consolidation. No excavations were made, but the surface 

 indications point to the conclusion that the different mounds indi- 

 cate that these pueblos have different shapes and sizes. 



The author's observations differ in several unimportant partic- 

 ulars from those of previous writers, and while it is not his intention 

 to describe in detail the Aztec Spring village he will call attention 

 to -certain features it shares with other villages in the Montezuma 

 Valley. 



i Rept. U. S. Cool. Survey Terr. (Hayden Survey) for 1874, Washington, 1876. > I p. eit. 



