86 THE CLIFF RUINS OF CANYON DE CHELLY [ ETH. ANN. 16 
of De Chelly, but oceasionally the whole stream bed, at places over a 
quarter of a mile wide, is occupied by a raging torrent impassable to 
man or beast. Such ebullitions, however, seldom last more than a few 
hours. Usually water can be obtained anywhere in the bottom by 
sinking a shallow well in the sand, and it is by this method that the 
Navaho, the present occupants of the canyon, obtain their supply. 
The walls of the canyon are composed of brilliant red sandstone, 
discolored everywhere by long streaks of black and gray coming from 
above. At its mouth it is about 500 feet wide. Higher up the walls 
sometimes approach to 300 feet of each other, elsewhere broadening 
out to half a mile or more; but everywhere the wall line is tortuous 
and crooked in the extreme, and, while the general direction of De 
Chelly is east and west, the traveler on the trail which runs through it 
is as often headed north or south. Del Muerto is even more tortuous 
than De Chelly, and in places it is so narrow that one could almost 
throw a stone across it. 
At its mouth the walls of Canyon de Chelly are but 20 to 30 feet high, 
descending vertically to a wide bed of loose white sand, and absolutely 
free from talus or débris. Three miles above Del Muerto comes in, but 
its mouth is so narrow‘it appears like an alcove and might easily be 
overlooked. Here the walls are over 200 feet high, but the rise is so 
eradual that it is impossible to appreciate its amount. At the point 
where Monument canyon comes in, 13 miles above the mouth of De 
Chelly, the walls reach a height of over 800 feet, about one-third of 
which consists of talus. 
The rise in the height of the walls is so gradual that when the canyon 
is entered at its mouth the mental scale by which we estimate distances 
and magnitudes is lost and the wildest conjectures result. We fail at 
first to realize the stupendous scale on which the work was done, and 
when we do finally realize it we swing to the opposite side and exag- 
gerate. At the junction of Monument canyon there is a beautiful rock 
pinnacle or needle standing out clear from the cliff and not more than 
165 feet on the ground. It has been named, in conjunction with a some- 
what similar pinnacle on the other side of the canyon, ‘ The Captains,” 
and its height has been variously estimated at from 1,200 to 2,500 feet. 
It is less than 800. A curious illustration of the effects of the scenery 
in connection with this pinnacle may not be amiss. The author of 
Western Wilds (Cincinnati, 1878) thus describes it: 
But the most remarkable and unaccountable feature of the locality is where the 
canyons meet. There stands out 100 feet from the point, entirely isolated, a vast 
leaning rock tower at least 1,200 feet high and not over 200 thick at the base, as if 
it had originally been the sharp termination of the cliff and been broken off and 
shoved farther out. It almost seems that one must be mistaken; that it must have 
some connection with the cliff, until one goes around it and finds it 100 feet or more 
from the former. It leans at an angle from the perpendicular of at least 15 degrees; 
and lying down at the base on the under side, by the best sighting I could make, it 
seemed to me that the opposite upper edge was directly over me—that is to say, 
mechanically speaking, its center of gravity barely falls with the base, and a heave 
of only a yard or two more would cause it to topple over. (Page 257.) 
