NO. I ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS FEWKES 29 



round rooms, a semi-circular building, and a rectangular room 

 (fig. 14). The basal courses of the masonry are constructed of 

 massive, almost megalithic, rocks. The walls of the rectangular 

 building are particularly well made, and enclose a room filled to the 

 top with clay mixed with fallen rubble. The longest side of this 

 room extends north and south. The whole cluster is approximately 

 70 feet in length. The diameter of the circular rooms varies, the 

 outside measurement of the larger ones being about 20 feet, while 

 the smallest is barely large enough for a man to stand in with comfort. 

 The semi-circular room is 14 feet in diameter. The axis of these 

 rooms extends approximately in a north-south direction. So far as 

 could be traced each of the larger circular ruins has on the inside an 

 elevated banquette surrounding it, and enclosed in a wall, reaching 

 a height of 10 feet. There is much fallen rock within these enclosures 

 concealing their floors and rendering it impossible to trace properly 

 the course of the banquette or interpret its relation. Another ruin 

 of the same general plan, but smaller, is a little farther down on the 

 same side of the canyon. Its walls have tumbled almost to their 

 foundations, and are inconspicuous, resembling piles of stone. 



The essential architectural feature of the Hill Canyon towers is 

 their circular form, modified in many instances by the addition of 

 a straight wall or rectangular annex. In certain cases the enclosing 

 walls of two towers have fused, while in the Eight Mile Ruin the 

 towers are accompanied by a rectangular room separated a short 

 distance from them. 



None of these towers show any evidences of past habitation and, 

 what is remarkable, no fragments of pottery occur on the surface of 

 the plateau in their neighborhood. Not far from the tower (pi. 10, a) , 

 there was picked up a mealing stone similar to those used by pueblo 

 Indians in grinding corn, but no accompanying metate was found. 

 No excavations were attempted. 



Mushroom Rock Ruins 



The structure of the ruins of the mushroom rock type is not radi- 

 cally different from that of the towers above described, they being 

 exceptional only in their unusual sites. They occur on top of 

 eroded pillars of rock, often enlarged on top, reminding one of 

 mushrooms, like the so-called Snake rock at Walpi. They were 

 once extensions or spurs of the mesa but are now rock pillars cut off 

 by erosion so that they stand out isolated from the rim of the canyon. 



