188 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
an apparent depth of at least fifteen feet. Some of the basement rooms in 
each of these pueblos are probably still entire, judging from the great mass 
of material over them. Great pit-holes indicate the position of chambers 
and inclosing-walls. The largest of the two pueblos is 300 feet in depth. 
In one place, where some excavation has been done, the corner of a base- 
ment room is in sight. All these ruins ought to be re-examined, and so far 
excavated as to recover complete ground plans. 
Near the mouth of the river are said to be still other ruins, and still 
others on the east side of the river, which we had no time to examine. 
The valley of the Animas River is here broad and beautiful, about 
three miles wide. The river passes nearly through the center of the valley. 
The cliff, on the east side of the level plain, is bold and mountainous, rising 
from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high, while on the west side the 
valley is bordered with the mesa formation in two benches, one rising back 
of the other, and both as level as a floor, with the highlands forming the 
divide between the Animas and La Plata Rivers in the distance. 
From the number and size of the houses, there was probably a popula- 
tion of at least five thousand persons at this settlement, living by horticult- 
ure. It is not now known by what tribe of Indians these pueblos were 
inhabited or constructed. ; 
These pueblos, newly constructed and in their best condition, must 
have presented a commanding appearance. From the materials used in 
their construction, from their palatial size and unique design, and from the 
cultivated gardens by which they were doubtless surrounded, they were 
calculated to impress the beholder very favorably with the degree of culture 
to which the people had attained. It is a singular fact that none of the 
occupied pueblos in New Mexico at the present time are equal in materials 
or in construction with those found in ruins. It tends to show a decadence 
of art among them since the period of European discovery. 
Westward of the Animas, the La Plata, and the Mancos Rivers, which 
run southwesterly into the San Juan, is the Montezuma Valley, a broad 
and level plain, so named by General Heffernan, of Animas City. It is 
about fifty miles in length, and apparently ten miles wide at the ranch of 
Mr. Henry L. Mitchell, which is situated at the commencement of the 
