158 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
the Pueblo Indians called estufas, or places where the people held their 
political and religious meetings.” 
The main building, Fig. 30, is two hundred and thirty-eight feet long, 
and the wing one hundred and seventy-four feet. It seems probable, from the 
symmetrical character of most of these structures, that the original plan con- 
templated an extension of the main building, the addition of another wing, to 
be followed by the connection of the wings with a wall, thus closing the court. 
These buildings were not all completed at once, but were extended and 
increased in the number of stories from generation to generation, as the 
people increased in numbers and prosperity. The plan upon which these 
houses were erected favored such extension. The great size of some of 
these structures can only be explained by the hypothesis of growth through 
long periods of time. The stone for building this pueblo was found quite 
near. Mr. Jackson remarks that ‘on the side of the bluff facing the valley 
is an outcrop of a yellowish-gray sandstone, showing in some places a seam 
of from twelve to eighteen inches in thickness, where the rock breaks into 
thin slate-like layers. It was from this stratum that most of the material in 
2 
the walls was obtained. He further remarks concerning the estufas : 
‘Tn the northwest angle of the court are two circular rooms, or estufas, the 
best preserved one of which is built into the main building and forms a 
portion of it, while the other stands outside, but in juxtaposition, and is 
evidently a later and less perfect addition. They are each twenty-five feet 
in diameter. The inside walls are perfectly cylindrical, and in the case of 
the inner one are in good preservation for a height of about five feet. 
* * * There are no side apertures, so that light and access was proba- 
bly obtained through the roof. These estufas, which figure so prominently 
in these ruins and in fact in all the ancient ruins extending southward from 
the basin of the Rio San Juan, are so identical in their structure, position, 
and evident uses with the similar ones in the pueblos now inhabited, that 
they indisputably connect one with the other, and show this region to have 
been covered at one time with a numerous population, of which the present 
inhabitants of the pueblos of Moki and of New Mexico are either the 
remnants or the descendants. * * * Beneath the ground plan [in Fig. 
1Simpson’s Report, p. 76. 2 Jackson’s Report, p. 433. 
va 
