KIDDER—GUERNSEY ] ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN ARIZONA 47 
The South Comb, a great fault in the sandstone formation, extends 
from San Juan River to Marsh Pass. To the north, beyond the 
river, it continues as far as Elk Ridge in San Juan County, Utah, 
where Comb Wash takes its name from it. It is a long line of sand- 
stone cliffs, abrupt on their western sides, sloping to the east, their 
jagged and toothed summits readily suggesting the name that has 
been given them by settlers. 
While there are a number of small surface ruins along both sides 
of the comb from the river up to within 5 miles of Kayenta, its 
walls in that stretch seem to contain few caves suitable for cliff- 
dwellings. Water is also very scanty. In 1912 one of the authors 
rode its whole length on the western side and along a good part of 
its eastern face without finding any houses, nor does Mr. John Weth- 
erill know of any beyond a few in the neighborhood of Kayenta. 
The ruin at which we worked is, therefore, so far as we know, the 
northernmost cliff-house of any size in the South Comb proper. 
At this point there is a break in the cliffs, leaving a narrow gulch | 
that twists through the jagged and tilted sandstone strata. It is 
one of the few places in the whole length of the comb where horses 
may be got across and is consequently much used by the Navaho as 
a route from the broad open plains of Laguna Creek to the more 
broken country to the westward. At several places among the ledges 
there are seep springs; close by, along Laguna Creek, lies abundance 
of good corn land; one part or another of the winding gulch or its 
branches offers shelter from any wind that can blow, and, all in all, 
this little nook in the comb must have been an almost ideal home 
site from the cliff-dweller’s point of view. That it was thoroughly 
appreciated is shown by the remains of a surface ruin on a sand 
knoll in the main gulch, and by the cliff-house just mentioned. 
Ruin 7 (Ona House) 
“ Olla House,” as we called it, was very prolific in specimens. This 
was due to the fact that the house was not only entirely protected 
from rain by the roof of its sheltering cave, but also because there 
was no seepage of water from the rear of the cave itself. Further- 
nore, the place seems to have been inhabited for a considerable time, 
so that large beds of refuse accumulated in the open spaces in front 
of the rooms. 
Plate 13, a, a photograph taken from the opposite side of the little 
rocky draw, shows the site, a “ double-decker” house, as it is called 
in the Southwest; the main group of living rooms below, a walled-up 
ledge for storage and defense above. The ruin in the lower cave 
was larger than any of the houses previously examined; it contained 
1 These have been examined by Professor Cummings, 
