17 



overhang to any extent, and must, year by year, yield a little to the 

 elements j bat I observe that since the construction of these foundations 

 no perceptible change has taken place ; the thickness of a sheet of 

 paper has hardly been washed from the surface of the rock, and the 

 mortar, which is of almost equal firmness with the rock, lies upon it as 

 if placed there within a dozen years, and the plaster on the outer wall, 

 although somewhat cracked and broken off, does not add greatly to our 

 impressions of antiquity. 



There is also a fact worthy of notice in regard to the question of occu- 

 pancy. I have already stated my impression that these houses were not 

 used as constant dwelling-places, but rather as places of occasional 

 resort. I notice that, although the building seems complete and has 

 had its floors laid and its doorways and windows conveniently and care- 

 fully arranged, the plastering of the interior is almost untouched, that 

 with the exception of three names scratched in the soft, thick coat of 

 adobe by Mr. Jackson's party, there is almost no trace of the presence 

 of man ; yet this plaster may have been applied only shortly before the 

 final desertion, and hence no definite conclusion can be drawn. 



A sketch of one of the door- ways is given in figure 2. The outline is 

 accurately drawn, but there is a little too much regularity in the stone- 

 work. It will be seen that the aperture is of very nearly the same 

 width above and below, which is rather unusual, since, in these ruins, 

 as well as in those farther south, the door- ways and windows are, as a 

 rule, narrower at the top. This drawing also shows the manner of em- 

 ploying a number of small straight beams of wood as lintels, for the 

 purpose, evidently, of strengthening the masonry above. 



There are two of these exterior door-ways only, one opening into 

 each story of the front room from the unoccupied part of the niche; 

 these are shown in figure 3, a sketch of the interior of the front room 

 taken from the side /. There is only a low wall between this room and 

 the room c, while small door-ways communicate with the other apart- 

 ments. There is a small rectangular window, 22 inches high by 30 wide, 

 in the front wall, from which a fine view can be had of the deep narrow 

 valley below. 



Figure 4 is designed to show the extraordinary situation of these 

 houses. Whether viewed from below or from the heights above the 

 effect is almost startling, and one cannot but feel that no ordinary cir- 

 cumstances could have driven a people to such places of resort. 



There are no ruins of importance in the caQon of the Maucos above 

 the two-story house. Indistinct remains occur on the bottoms in a 

 number of places, and a few small houses were observed in the cliffs. 

 The most interesting of these is built upon a ledge about 40 feet above 

 the trail, and is nearly midway between the two-story house and the 

 head of the caiion. It does not differ in any essential point from the 

 ruins already described. I shall therefore pass it by, in order to take 

 up two very interesting groups of ruins that occur about twenty miles to 

 the northwest. 



Between the Mesa Yerde and the Late Mountains, of which Ute peak 

 is the culminating summit, there is a long, deep valley or strip of low- 

 land that connects the great lowland of the Lower Mancos with the 

 caiion-cut plain that rises toward the Dolores. The southern end of this 

 depressed strip drains into the Maucos, the northern into the McElmo. 

 The latter stream heads along the north base of the Mesa Verde within 

 five miles of the Mancos at the j)oint where it enters the caiion, and 

 flows westward, passing along the north base of Ute Mountain, curving 

 around to the southwest and reaching the San Juan nearly ten miles 

 No. 1 2 



