MiNDELErF) ANOMALOUS FEATURES. 199 



The third room is found also outside the village and at its southeastern 

 corner. The space inclosed within the walls of this room measured 

 about 7 feet by 4 and the lines of wall are at an acute angle with the 

 wall lines of the village. This structure is anomalous, and its purpose 

 is not clear. 



The absence of clearly defined traces of passageways to the interior 

 of the village is noticeable. This absence can hardly be attributed to 

 the advanced state of decay in the ruin, for nearly all the wall lines 

 can still be easily traced. At one point only is there a suggestion of 

 an open passageway similar to those found in the inhal)ited pueblos. 

 This occurs in the southeastern corner of the ground plan, between the 

 southern cluster and the southern part of the northeastern cluster. 

 It was about 25 feet long and but (i feet wide in the clear. There were 

 undoubtedly other passageways to the interior courts, but they were 

 probably roofed over and perhaps consisted of rooms abandoned for 

 that purpose. This, however, is anomalous. 



There are several other anomalous features in the grouiul plan, the 

 purposes of which are not clear. Prominent among them is a heavy 

 wall extending about halfway across the southern side of the village 

 and at some distance trom it. The total length of this wall is ICii feet; 

 it is 4 feet thick (nearly twice the thickness of the other walls), and is 

 pierced near its center by an opening or gateway 4 feet wide. The 

 nearest rooms of the village on the north are over 40 feet away. This 

 wall is now much broken down, but here and there, as shown on the 

 plan, portions of the original wall lines are left. It is probable that its 

 original height did not exceed 5 or 6 feet. The purpose of this struc- 

 ture is obscure; it could not have been erected for defense, for it has 

 no defensive value whatever; it had no connection with the houses of 

 the village, for it is too far removed from them. The only possible use 

 of this wall that occurs to the writer is that it was a dam or retaining 

 wall for a shallow pool of water, fed by tlie surface drainage of a small 

 area on the east and northeast. There is at present a very slight 

 depression between the wall and the first houses of the village toward 

 the north — about a foot or a foot and a half — but there may have been 

 a depression of 2 or 3 feet here at one time and this depression may 

 have been subsequently filled up by sediment. This conjecture could 

 be easily tested by excavating a trench across the area between the 

 wall and the houses, but in the absence of such an excavation the 

 suggestion is a mere surmise. 



Another anomalous feature is found in the center of the southwestern 

 cluster. Here, in two different rooms, are found walls of double the 

 usual thickness, occurring, however, on only one or two sides of the 

 rooms. These are cle.arly shown on the ground plan. The western- 

 most of the two rooms which exhibit this feature has walls of normal 

 thickness on three of its sides, while the fourth or eastern side consists 

 of two walls of normal thickness, built side by side, i^erhaps the result 

 of some domestic quarrel. The eastern room, however, has thick walls 



