fewkbs] PREHISTORIC VILLAGES, CASTLES, AND TOWERS 33 



rounded by cultivated fields. The view from its top looking toward 

 Ute Mountain and the Mesa Verde plateau is particularly extensive. 

 The butte is forested by a few spruces growing at the base and 

 extending up the sides, which are replaced at the summit by a 

 thick growth of sage and other bushes which cover the mound, 

 rendering it difficult to make out the ground plan of the ruin on 

 its top. 



From what appears on the surface it would seem that this ruin 

 was a circular or semicircular building about 60 feet in diameter, the 

 walls rising about 10 feet high. Like other circular mounds it shows 

 a well-marked depression in the middle, from which radiate walls 

 or indications of walled compartments. Like the majority of the 

 buildings of the circular form, the walls on one side have fallen, 

 suggesting that a low straight wall, possibly with rectangular rooms, 

 was annexed to this side. 



In the neighborhood of Butte Ruin there is another hill crowned 

 with a pile of stones, probably a round building of smaller size and 

 with more dilapidated walls. Old cedar beams project in places out 

 of the mounds. 



The cliff -houses below the largest of these mounds show well- 

 made walls with a few rafters and beams. There are pictographs on 

 the cliff a short distance away. 



Emerson Ruin 



This rum crowns a low hill about 3 miles south of Dolores (fig, 3). 

 The form of the mound is semicircular with a depression in the 

 middle around which can be traced radiating partitions suggesting 

 compartments. Its outer wall on the south side, as in so many 

 other examples of this type, has fallen, and the indications are that 

 here the wall was straight, or like that on the south side of Horse- 

 shoe Ruin. 



The author's attention was first called to this ruin by Mr. Gordon 

 Parker, supervisor of the Montezuma Forest Reserve, it having been 

 discovered by Mr. J. W. Emerson, one of his rangers. The circular 

 or semicircular form (fig. 4) of the mound indicates at once that it 

 does not belong to the same type as Far View House; the central 

 depression is surrounded by a series of compartments separated by 

 radiating walls like the circular rums in the pueblo region to the 

 south. Mr. Emerson's report, which follows, points out the main 

 features of this remarkable ruin, 1 



1 The letter referring to'the circular ruin near Polorcs was prepared by Mr. Emerson, (he discoverer of 

 this ruin, and was transmitted tolhe Smithsonian Institution as pari of a phase of cooperative work with 

 the Forest Service, by Mr. Gordon Parker, superintendent cf the Montezuma Forest Reserve. 



10S852 — 19— Bull. 70 3 



