188 THE CLIFF RUINS OF CANYON DE CHELLY [etn ann. 16 
doubtful whether these three examples should be classed with the pre- 
ceding, but as they may have been used in the same manner they should 
be mentioned here. Another doubtful example occurs in the upper 
part of the same ruin and has already been described (page 110). It 
vas constructed of stone at some time subsequent to the completion of 
the wall against which it rests. 
Over twenty ago Mr W. H. Holmes found a structure in Mancos 
canyon which it now appears may be of this type. He illustrates it 
by a ground plan and thus describes it: 
The most striking feature of this structure [ruin] is the round room, which occurs 
about the middle of the ruin and inside of a large rectangular apartment. . . . 
Its walls are not high and not entirely regular, and the inside is curiously fashioned 
with offsets and box-like projections. Itis plastered smoothly and bears considerable 
evidence of having been used, although I observed no traces of tire. The entrance 
to this chamber is rather extraordinary, and further attests the peculiar importance 
attached to it by the builders and their evident desire to secure it from all possibility 
of intrusion. A walled and covered passageway of solid masonry, 10 feet of which is 
still intact, leads from an outer chamber through the small intervening apartments 
into the cireular one. It is possible that this originally extended to the outer wall 
and was entered from the outside. If so, the person desiring to visit the estufa [kiva] 
would have to enter an aperture about 22 inches high by 30 wide and crawl in the 
most abject manner possible through a tube-like passageway nearly 20 feet in length. 
My first impression was that this peculiarly constructed doorway was a precaution 
against enemies and that it was probably the only means of entrance to the interior of 
the house, but I am now inclined to think this hardly probable, and conelude that 
it was rather designed to render a sacred chamber as free as possible from profane 
intrusion. ! 
In this example the tunnel was much larger than usual and the ver- 
tical shaft, if there were one, has been so much broken down that it is 
no longer distinguishable. Nordenskidld mentions a considerable num- 
ber of kivas with this attachment, and one which is described and 
figured is said to be a type of all the kivas in that region, but an 
inspection of his ground plans shows more kivas without this feature 
than with it. In his description of a small ruin in Cliff canyon he 
speaks of— 
a circular room still in a fair state of preservation. The wall that lies 
nearest the precipice is for the most part in ruins; the rest of the room is well pre- 
served. After about half a meter of dust and rubbish had been removed, we were 
able to ascertain that the walls formed a cylinder 4.3 meters in diameter. The thick- 
ness of the wall is throughout considerable, and varies, the spaces between the points 
where the cylinder touches the walls of adjoining rooms* having been filled up with 
masonry. The height of the room is 2 meters. The roof has long since fallen in, 
and only one or two beams are left among the rubbish. Jo a height of 1.2 meters 
from the floor the wall is perfectly even and has the form of a cylinder, or rather of 
a truneate cone, as it leans slightly inward. The upper portion, on the other hand, 
is divided by six deep niches into the same number of pillars: The floor is of clay 


‘10th Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Survey of the Territories, F. V. Hones in charge (Washing- 
ton, 1878); report on the ‘Ancient ruins of Southwestern Colorado,” by W. H. Holmes; p.395, pl. 
Xxxvii. 
2In the ground plan given there is no point shown where the walls of the kiva touch adjoining 
rooms. 
