4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I47 



comparable desolation 8 centuries before, eventually will fill with 

 alluvium and be forgotten but Pueblo Bonito remains a ruin, a mag- 

 nificent ruin (pi. 3). 



DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 



Pueblo Bonito was first described by Lt. James H. Simpson (1850, 

 p. 81) following a cursory inspection on the afternoon of August 28, 

 1849. Twenty-eight years later, in the spring of 1877, W. H. Jack- 

 son of the Hayden Surveys camped 4 or 5 days at a muddy water- 

 hole west of Pueblo del Arroyo and during that brief period not 

 only mapped the valley but prepared ground plans and descrip- 

 tions of Pueblo Bonito and 10 other ruins — descriptions and plans 

 used by all who followed (Jackson, 1878). A decade after Jackson, 

 Victor Mindeleff of the Smithsonian Institution devoted 6 winter 

 weeks to surveying, mapping, and photographing those same ruins 

 for a report that never materialized (Mindeleff, 1891, p. 14; Powell, 

 1892, p. XXX). 



The names by which the Chaco Canyon ruins are currently known 

 have been variously written, but herein, as previously, we adhere to 

 the spelling that was originally recorded by Simpson and Jackson 

 and which is that since accepted by the United States Geographic 

 Board, the Bureau of American Ethnology, and other recognized 

 authorities. 



Merchants from Rio Grande settlements, militiamen on their sev- 

 eral missions, and U. S. Army engineers seeking a better route to 

 the Pacific visited Chaco Canyon before and after Simpson. Few of 

 these transients left any record of what they saw along the way, but 

 some among them did regrettable damage to the old ruins while 

 searching for souvenirs, and the finger of suspicion points to all. 



Members of Colonel Washington's 1849 command have most fre- 

 quently been accused of this vandalism but Simpson himself exoner- 

 ates them. The troops camped for the night of August 26 about a mile 

 from Pueblo Pintado, at the head of Chaco Canyon, and 2 days later 

 left the valley at the Mesa Fachada (Fajada Butte), while Simpson 

 (1850, p. 78) and nine companions rode on to examine Una Vida 

 and other ruins, expecting to overtake the command by nightfall. 



In 1877 old Hosta, one of Colonel Washington's 1849 guides, told 

 Jackson (1878, p. 435) that timbers were lacking at Pueblo Pintado 

 because soldiers "and other scouting parties" had used them for 

 campfires. Apparently a well-known trail passed this way from 

 Jemez and the Rio Grande settlements. 



