40 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



ber of annual rings lost through disintegration but that lone, mid- 

 valley straggler from the Chaco forest obviously witnessed the un- 

 folding of much Pueblo Bonito history. 



Added to those we recovered within the walls of Pueblo Bonito, 

 our list includes three samples, JPB 54, 95, and 96, from fine old 

 timbers in buildings Richard Wetherill erected between 1897 and 

 1910. The first of these, JPB 54, identifies a beam from the trading 

 post Wetherill built in the autumn of 1897 outside Room 14& (Pepper, 

 1920, fig. 4) and which we razed in 1923 ; JPB 95 and 96 are beam 

 samples from a square, isolated stone building that is identified on 

 Holsinger's 1901 plan of Pueblo del Arroyo as "employees quarters" 

 (Judd, 1959, fig. 45) but which Jack Martin, a Hyde Expedition 

 teamster, called "Wetherill's gasoline house." This same small build- 

 ing is listed as "Tanner's garage" for specimens 2345 and 2346, both 

 with a cutting date of 1065, collected for Gila Pueblo in 1940 by Dr. 

 Deric O'Bryan. 



O'Bryan (personal communication) also sectioned six ceiling poles 

 in Room 97, a 2-story Old Bonitian room revamped by the Late 

 Bonitians, and reported cutting dates at 1026, 1057, 1067, 1071, 1073, 

 and 1092. Four timbers from another second-type room, 300, were 

 dated 1029, 1040, 1044, and 1047. Gila Pueblo employed a mechanical 

 method for counting rings but the results obtained rarely varied more 

 than a year or two from those recorded by Douglass. 



O'Bryan for Gila Pueblo is among those who have collected tree- 

 ring material in Chaco Canyon since conclusion of the Pueblo Bonito 

 Expeditions in 1927. He lists two constructional dates from Rooms 

 239 and 240, respectively, on the periphery of Kiva D, one (No. 2291) 

 collected by G. Vivian in 1940 while repairing the southwest bench 

 in Kiva F, and several from timbers, provenience unknown, utilized 

 by Richard Wetherill in reroofing Bonitian rooms for his own use. 

 Timbers that were sound, unscarred, and unclaimed were there for 

 the taking when Wetherill came to establish his home in treeless 

 Chaco Canyon and, however much we may regret the fact today, I am 

 not among those who condemn him for having taken advantage of 

 his opportunity. 



Bryant Bannister (1960) dates at A.D. 1030, 1031, and 1077 three 

 beams recovered by National Park Service personnel during demoli- 

 tion of "Ackerly House," the former Wetherill dwelling and store at 

 the southwest corner of Pueblo Bonito (pi. 5, lower). Despite field 

 numbers since added, the original National Geographic Society list 

 ended with JPB 145, as indicated above. 



