fewkes] PREHISTORIC VILLAGES, CASTLES, AND TOWERS 57 



leads to the inference that they were used contemporaneously and 

 for the same purpose. There is a well-made doorway (fig. 17) in 

 the Round Tower. 



TOWER IN SAND CANYON 



Sand Canyon, which opens into McElmo Canyon near Battle Rock, 

 has several types of prehistoric ruins, viz, towers, cliff-houses, and large 

 rim-rock pueblos. The tower type of architecture represented by 

 the example here figured (pi. 5, a) is isolated from other forms of 

 buildings. This tower is figured by Doctor Prudden, who mentions 

 another in the neighborhood which the author did not visit. 



TOWERS IN ROAD (WICKYUP) CANYON 



The nomenclature of the northern canyons of the McElmo has 

 considerably changed in the last 40 years. What we now call the 

 Yellow Jacket was formerly known through its entire course as the 

 Hovenweep. A small canyon opening near its mouth, now known 

 as Road Canyon, was formerly called the Wickyup. The Old Bluff 

 City Road from Dolores, Colorado, to Bluff City, Utah, divides into 

 two branches a short distance before 

 it descends into the McElmo, its left 

 branch passing through Road Canyon, 

 the right bank of which follows the 

 Yellow Jacket, which the traveler 

 fords a short distance above its junc- 

 tion with the McElmo. Wickyup 

 Canyon may be called picturesque, 

 its cliffs being worn into fantastic 

 shapes by water and sand. It has im- 

 portant antiquities, among the most <^f^^^^ 

 striking of which are two towers (pi. 

 24, Z>), crowning the tops of low 

 buttes or hills. The walls of these 

 towers are well constructed, one being a simple structure with 

 a single room, the other having appended rectangular rooms ex- 

 tending toward the northwest, some distance along a ridge of 

 rocks. An examination of these two towers, which are about 

 one-quarter of a mile apart, shows that they belong to the same 

 type as the simple forms of those above mentioned, and as the 

 entrance to Square Tower Canyon is not far away, they probably be- 

 long to the same series. The first of the towers, called "Bowlder 

 Castle," is situated a few hundred feet east of the road, from which it 

 is easily seen. This ruin is rectangular in shape and rises from a basal 

 mass of debris indicating: broken-down walls of rooms. At a level with 



Fig. 17. — Doorway in Round Tower, 

 McLean Basin. 



