KIDDER—GUERNSEY ] ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN ARIZONA 19 
contrasts sharply in color with the red adobe earth of the region. 
On it were many potsherds, broken stone implements, and chips, and 
its whole appearance strongly suggests the burial mounds of the 
mesa ruins, north of the San Juan. A series of trenches run 
through the dark deposit to the undisturbed red substratum failed, 
however, to disclose any skeletons. Potsherds on the surface and in 
the earth were not noticeably different from those of the cliff-house. 
Within a radius of half a mile from Ruin 1 were four small 
granaries, a group of ancient pictographs, and several Navaho draw- 
ings. Laid in a cranny behind the back wall of one of the granuries 
there was found a series of switchlike implements made by tying 
together at the butts a number of little twigs. There were three 
finished specimens and materials for making another. All were most 
perfectly preserved and are more fully described in section 2. 
After completing the excavation of Ruin 1, we moved into the 
next canyon, about 2 miles to the west, and camped at a place called 
by the Navaho Sayodneechee, “ Where the red rocks run under,” in 
reference to a noticeable dip in the red sandstone strata.1_ Here one 
of our party, while exploring a few days previously, had found a 
second cliff-house. 
Ruin 2 
Ruin 2 lies in a cave about 65 feet deep by 70 feet across the 
mouth (pl. 5). It is accessible only from below, where there is a 
sheer drop of 22 feet to the sloping lower rock; from there to the 
valley bottom there is a less abrupt slope of rock 50 feet in vertical 
height. We made our entry by lashing two poles together, raising 
them to the edge of the cave, and steadying them with ropes while 
Clayton Wetherill climbed in and fastened hand-ropes. It required 
much daring and great skill in handling himself for this first adven- 
turer to work from the end of the top pole, which barely reached 
the lip of the rock, up over the steep incline to the safe footing of 
the cave proper (pl. 6, a). We were, without question, the first 
people to enter this cave since its final desertion by the occupants. 
The buildings themselves were much ruined, a condition attributable 
primarily to destruction of the roofs and timbers by fire, and second- 
_ arily to the elements. While the whole interior is perfectly sheltered 
from rain, southerly and westerly winds, which blow in this region 
with great violence, scour and whirl the sand round and round in 
the cave, producing an almost constant attrition that cuts away the 
adobe mortar from between the building stones and ultimately 
brings down the walls themselves. To such wind-erosion may be 
1for this and other Navaho names and their meaning, as well as for much other 
information in regard to the Navaho, the authors are indebted to Mrs. John Wetherill. 
