82 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
These stones project 4 feet above the surface and their size 
has led to the ruin being called Megalithic House. Excava- 
tion work on this ruin was begun but not completed before 
the appropriation was exhausted. 
About every other night during the five months the chief 
worked on the Mesa Verde he gave camp-fire talks to visitors 
and spent considerable time daily in explaining the significa- 
tion of the excavations while they were in progress. 
In June, 1923, the chief made a trip to Deming, southern 
New Mexico, and visited different localities, Fort Bayard, 
Central, Silver City, and Pinos Altos, where pictured food 
bowls have been found. He purchased a beautiful collection 
of pottery from the Mimbres Valley, which supplements 
that already installed in the Museum.: 
In 1914 the chief first pomted out that the Mimbres Valley, 
in which this pottery is found, was inhabited in prehistoric 
times by a people who excelled all other pueblos in painting 
realistic figures on pottery. The scientific value of these 
pictures is very great from the fact that the prehistoric 
dwellers in the Mimbres Valley in this way left a reliable 
and permanent record of certain occupations (hunting, 
fishing, gambling), as well as wonderful representations of 
mythological animals of all varieties. If we could truthfully 
interpret these figures, our knowledge of the prehistoric 
mythology of a people of whose history, language, and rela- 
tionship we know nothing from documentary sources would 
be greatly increased. 
Not far from the close of the fiscal year, President Harding 
issued a proclamation declaring three groups of towers in 
southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah to be a 
national monument. This announcement was particularly 
gratifying to the chief, not only because it preserved for 
future generations good examples of unique types of ancient 
buildings in our Southwest but also because the idea of the 
reservation of Hovenweep National Monument originated 
in the Bureau of American Ethnology. The three groups 
composing this monument lie within a few miles of each 
other and are locally called Ruin Canyon group, Holly 
Canyon group, and the Tejon Mesa group. 
