I. FIELD WORK 
SEASON OF 1914 
ROVISIONING at Kayenta, the party first took up the 
exploration of the territory lying between the great Capitan 
Rock (“ Agathla Needle” of the maps) and the “* Monuments,” 
a cluster of enormous eroded pillars of sandstone lying about midway 
between it and the San Juan River (pl. 1; fig. 1)." 
Several short but many-branched canyons head in the plateau 
north of FE] Capitan and run down to the lower or Monument bench, 
where they open out and merge into a great barren “flat” that 
stretches away toward the San Juan. There are neither permanent 
springs nor streams in these canyons, but save in years of excep- 
tional drought water is carried over from the spring rains until 
those of midsummer in numerous deep pockets in the sandstone cliffs. 
The vegetation is of the usual semidesert type, cedar and pifion 
predominating, while box elder and scrub oak are found in certain 
favorable localities; the commoner small growths are sage, grease- 
wood, cactus, and the narrow-leaved yucca. While none of them 
occur in the immediate vicinity, spruce, pine, and quaking aspen are 
to be found on the high mesas 15 or 20 miles to the south, and cot- 
tonwoods grow abundantly in the valley of the San Juan, about 
the same distance to the north. Navaho families live here and there 
in the canyons, each one with its flock of sheep and goats, and its 
sandy corn patch situated in some sheltered bay or draw of the 
cliffs where long experience has shown that there is a maximum 
of underground water with a minimum of wind. 
In this region there are no large ruins, either of cliff-houses or 
pueblos. There are, however, numerous one- and two-roomed struc- 
tures and a few more pretentious buildings. The former were made 
by simply walling up the fronts of small natural caves or crannies 
in the rocks (pl. 2); their floors are not leveled, their roofs are sel- 
dom smoked, and there is little in the way of rubbish or potsherds in 
or about them to indicate that they were ever used as dwelling places. 
For this reason and because they are never found in groups or clus- 
ters, but are scattered up and down the canyons with no apparent 
1Hor general descriptions of the region see Prudden, 1903, and Cummings, 1910. 
15 
