62 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 65 
Dr. Fewkes, in his Navaho Monument paper, also gives two 
views of the structure, which he calls Ruin A.t’ He thus comments 
upon it: 
The first ruin of considerable size that was visited is situated to the left of 
and somewhat distant from the road, a few miles west and south of Marsh 
Pass. As this ruin stands on an elevation it is visible for a considerable 
distance across the valley, especially to one approaching it from the southwest. 
The standing walls rise in places to a height of 10 feet, showing indications 
of two stories, some of the rafters in places still projecting beyond the face 
of the wall. The two walls highest and most prominent are parallel, inclosing 
a long room or court; in one place a break has been made through these walls, 
as appears in the illustration. The remnants of foundations of other walls 
back of these show that Ruin A was formerly very much larger than the walls 
now standing would indicate. 
The walls are composed of roughly laid masonry, bearing evidences on the 
inside of adobe plastering. An exceptional feature is the large number of the 
component stones, decorated on their outer faces with deeply incised geo- 
metrical figures, apparently traced with some pointed implement. [See fig. 
97, d-g.] 
Professor Cummings’s identification of this structure as a central 
fort or place of assembly surrounded by smaller structures, is, we 
think, wrong. We are of the opinion that Ruin A is an example 
of the ordinary type of dwelling of this region and that the 
other ruins on this hill and those at other points along the valley 
were built in the same manner as this solitary standing example. 
In other words, we believe that it owes its preservation not to the 
superiority of its construction but to its situation on the crest 
of the ridge, where its foundations were safe from the undermining 
action of surface drainage. This belief is based on the evidence 
afforded by the eastern wall, which at one point has fallen away for 
a space of 15 to 20 feet long (pl. 22, a). The wall has fallen out- 
ward almost as one piece and, lying flat on the ground, has been 
so covered by drift sand that if the other walls were not standing, 
no one would suspect that there had once been at this place a struc- 
ture 15 feet or more in height. With this fact in mind we exam- 
ined the other ruins grouped about Ruin A, those of numbers of 
other houses farther down the pass, and still others on a mesa at 
the mouth of Sagi Canyon,-with the result that we could often make 
out, partly buried in the earth, sections of wall that had formerly 
stood to a height of from 10 to 12 feet, fallen quite flat on the 
ground and giving, at a superficial examination, no clue to the size 
of the buildings of which they had once formed parts. It seems, 
then, that Ruin A is typical of the domiciliary structures of the 
Marsh Pass district, and also probably of certain large houses on 
the top of Black Mesa described to us by the Navaho. The build- 
1Fewkes, 1911, p. 10, 
