304 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 50> 



boundary wall of the southwest plaza. The southeast corner of the 

 main building, Casa Grande, is broken in much the same way as the 

 northeast angle near the six ceremonial rooms, possibly from the 

 same cause. 



6. Font's Room 



Mange states that Father Kino said mass in the Casas Grandes, 

 and it is generally believed that this ceremony was performed in one 

 of the rooms of Casa Grande. As there were at the time of Kino's 

 visit several other rooms in the group, some of which were more 

 commodious, it is interesting to speculate on the possibility of one 

 of these being that referred to. 



Just east of Casa Grande was a large building (plate xxiv), for- 

 merly two stories high, which was apparently in a fair state of 

 preservation when Father Font visited it in 1775. So accurately 

 has this zealous priest described 1 and mapped this room, that it is 

 called after him and is referred to as "Font's room," in this article. 



Mange states in his diary that "a crossbow-shot farther on, twelve 

 other houses are seen half tumbled down, also with thick walls and 

 all with roofs burnt except one room beneath one house, with round 

 beams smooth and not thick, which appear to be cedar or savin and 

 over them rush reeds very similar to them and a layer of mortar and 

 hard clay, making a ceiling or story of very peculiar character." 



Font, 70 years after, wrote : "In front of the east door, separated 

 from the Casa, there is another building with dimensions from north 

 to south 26 feet and from east to west 18, exclusive of the thickness 

 of the walls." 2 



Although it was possible in 1694 for the observer, standing on the 

 roof of Casa Grande, to see the walls of all the buildings which were 

 excavated by the author, the best preserved of all, judging from 

 Font's account, was that named after him. At that time this was 

 apparently the only two-storied building in good preservation east 

 of the main one, which could be designated as "one room beneath 

 one house." The general appearance of this building last October 

 (1906) is shown in the accompanying plate (xxxiv, a, b). The 

 upright wall of this room was the only fragment besides the main 



1 Diario a Monterey por el Rio Colorado del Padre Pedro Font, 1777. 

 Copy of the original manuscript, which is in the John Carter Brown Library,. 

 Providence, R. I., now in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



' Font's measurements correspond very closely to the dimensions of the room 

 here referred to. 



