27 



but water was sadly deficient. However, by good Inck, as we might 

 call it, a few pools of the grateful fluid were found in the nearly dry bed 

 of an old stream, about four miles distant from the ruins. This pretense 

 of a stream is known locally as the McElmo, and flows westwardly into 

 the San Juan. For the greater portion of the year, its course is Ijut a 

 deep dry gulch, the water only coming to the surface near its mouth. 

 The valley or canon through which it flows is peculiar to this region. 

 Starting from the level plain at the foot of the Mesa Yerde, it sinks evenly 

 and gradually down between the mesa-lands, they having been rent 

 asunder to prepare for this graded wary, and, getting deeper and deeper, 

 is finally engulfed in the great chasms debouching into the Colorado. 

 It preserves a very nearly equal width of from two or three hundred 

 yards, perfectly flat and level, from the foot of one escarpment to that 

 of the other, and covered with the all prevalent artemisia and groups of 

 cedar and piiions. 



But a short distance above our camp, and upon the top of the mesa, 

 which, at this point, was not more than 25 feet above the valley, we 

 found a tower very similar to that on the Mancos (see Fig. 1.) but con- 

 siderably larger, and surrounded by a much greater settlement. It was 

 about 50 feet in diameter, and, like the Mancos one, double-walled, the 

 space between the two about 6 feet in width, and subdivided into small 

 apartments by cross-walls pierced with communicating doors or windows. 

 Immediately surrounding this tower was a great mass, of which it was 

 the center, of scattered heaps of stone debris, arranged in rectangular 

 order, each little square with a depressed center, suggesting large sub- 

 divided buildings, similar to the great community-dwellings of the Pue- 

 blos and Moquis and the old ruins of the Chaco. Upon the southeast 

 corner of this group, and upon the very edge of the onesa, were the re- 

 mains of another smaller tower, and below it, founded upon the bottom 

 of a small canon, which ran up at right angles to the McElmo, was a 

 portion of a heavy wall rising to the base of this lesser tower. This 

 group covered a space of about one hundred yards square 5 while ad- 

 joining it on the mesa was group after group, upon the same 

 general plan — a great central tower and smaller surrounding build- 

 ings. They covered the whole breadth and length of the land; and, 

 turn which way we would, Ave stumbled over the old mounds and into 

 the cellars, as we might call them, of these truly aborigines. The same 

 IDainted, glazed, and otherwise ornamented ware, of which I have spoken, 

 accompanied each settlement, and we were contiually picking up new 

 designs and forms. 



Starting down the canon, which gradually deepened as the table-land 

 closed over us, we found upon each hand very old and faint vestiges 

 of this forgotten i^eople, but could give them no more attention than 

 merely noting their existence. Half a dozen miles down, and we came 

 upon several little nest-like dwellings, very similar to those in Figs. 5 

 and 7, but only about 40 or 50 feet above the valley. Two miles farther, 

 and we came upon the tower shown in Fig. 9, standing upon the summit 

 of a great square block of sandstone, some forty feet in height, detached 

 from the bluff back of it. The building, upon its summit, was square, 

 with apertures like windows upon two faces, looking east and north, and 

 very much ruined, but still standing in some places about 15 feet above 

 the rock on which it was founded. At the base of the rock was a wall 

 running about it, a small portion only remaining, the rest thrown down 

 and covered with debris from the house above. 



About here we crossed the boundary-line into Utah, and then, two 

 or three miles farther, we came upon a very interesting group. The 



