170 ANTIQUITIES OF SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO  [ETH. ANN. 33 
foot 2 inches; bottom, 4 inches above floor; length of horizontal 
passage, 2 feet 3 inches; depth of ventilator shaft, 8 feet 3 inches. 
Two sticks crossed at right angles are set into the masonry just 
below the top of the air shaft. Resting upon these was a block of 
stone which closed the opening and came almost flush with the level 
of the plaza. 
In the east wall a few inches above the floor is a niche or “ cubby- 
hole” large enough to contain a fair-sized jar (pl. 35, 6). An 
unusual feature is the presence of a small niche in the fireward side 
of the deflector. I have found no mention of a nithe similarly 
placed in any kiva in the Mesa Verde. The presence of the two 
sipapu seems to render the kiva rather unusual, as only one other 
instance of the kind is on record.1. Somewhat more than a foot to 
the east of the first sipapu a mano was tightly plastered into the 
floor. 
The floor and the first 17 inches of the walls are plastered with 
brown clay. Higher up the walls are white and show few evidences 
of smoke. At the junction of the two zones is a dado like the one 
figured by Dr. Fewkes from the third story of the square tower 
in Chiff Palace.? (See pl. 35.) Beneath each banquette three clay- 
colored triangles extend up into the white, and between the series 
of large triangles are 29 to 34 smaller figures, such as could be made 
by a single dab of a brush. Nordenskidld shows practically the same 
decoration from a kiva in a ruin in Cliff Canyon and mentions 
having observed it also in two other ruins.’ 
There are numerous incised tracings in the white plaster of the 
upper walls. Those in the surface of a pedestal at the west side are 
shown in plate 34, c. In order to photograph these I traced them 
with charcoal, taking care not to add anything to the original. 
The masonry of Eagle Nest House is in places good, in others 
mediocre. Some of the walls toward the western end give evidence 
of hasty or careless construction. However, room 1 is as well built 
as are the better parts of Cliff Palace. The T-shaped doorway in 
the east end excites one’s admiration. The sides are so smooth and 
the angles so true that they might well be the work of a modern 
mason with his chisels and square. It appears that the stones were 
rubbed smooth after they were put in place. 
~ It is doubtful whether there can be found in any of the subdivi- 
sions of Mancos Canyon a better example of a “unit-type” cliff- 
dwelling than is present by Eagle Nest House.* The alignment 
1Pewkes Bull. 41, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 18. 
2 Bull. 51, Bur. Amer. Hthn., pl. 13, a. 
3Op. cit., p. 16. 
4A definition and explanation of this term may be found in Prudden, Prehistoric 
Ruins of the San Juan Watershed, p. 234. 
