33 



generally pierced tlirougb the wall at a downward angle. No sign of 

 either rooting or flooring material could be found in any of the rooms. 

 Everything of that kind has been thoroughly burnt out or removed, so 

 that not a vestige of wood-work remains. We cannot be positively 

 certain that they had ever been roofed, the mild temperature of this 

 region hardly necessitating any other covering than such as the ample 

 dome of the cave itself offered. In the central room of the main building 

 we found a circular basin-like depression, («,) 30 inchesacross and 10 d^ep, 

 that had served as a fire-place, being still tilled with the ashes and 

 cinders of aboriginal fires, the surrounding walls being blackened with 

 smoke and soot. This room was undoubtedly the kitchen of the house. 

 Some of the smaller rooms appear to have been used for the same pur- 

 pose, the fires having been made in the corner against the back wall, the 

 smoke escaping overhead. The masonry displayed in the construction of 

 the walls is very creditable ; a symmetrical curve is preserved throughout 

 the whole line, and every portion perfectly plumb; the subdivisions are 

 at right angles to the front. The stones employed are of the size used in 

 all similar structures, and are roughly broken to a uniform size; more 

 attention seems to have been paid to securing a smooth appearance upon 

 the exterior than the interior surfaces, the clay cement being spread to a 

 perfectly plane snrface, something like a-modern stucco finish. In many 

 places, of course, this has peeled away, leaving the rough, ragged edges 

 of the stones exposed. Inside some of the subdivisions that appear to 

 have been less used than others, the impressions of the hands and even 

 the delicate lines on the thumbs and fingers of the builders were plainly 

 retained ; in one or two eases a perfect mold of the whole inner surface 

 of the hand was imprinted in the plastic cement. They were considera- 

 bly smaller tlian our own hands, and were probably those of women or 

 children. In the mortar between the stones several corn-cobs were 

 found imbedded, and in other places the whole ear of corn had been 

 pressed into the clay, leaving its imp^ression ; the ears were quite small, 

 none more than 5 inches long. In the rubbish of the large house some 

 small stone implements, rough indented pottery in fragments, and a few 

 arrow-points were found. It is a wonder that anything is found, for it 

 is more than likely that every house has been ransacked time after time 

 by wandering bands of TJtes and Navajos, who would search with keen 

 eyes for any articles of use or ornament left after the first spoliation. 

 The whole appearance of the place and its surroundings indicates that 

 the family or little community who inhabited it were in good circum- 

 stances and the lords of the surrounding country. Looking out from 

 one of their houses, with a great dome of solid rock overhead, that 

 echoed and re-echoed every word uttered with marvelous distinctness, 

 and all about a steep descent of 100 feet down to the broad fertile valleys, 

 covered with waving fields of maize, the scattered groves of the majes- 

 tic Cottonwood, and the meanderings of the Eio !San Juan, these old 

 people, whom even the imagination can hardly clothe with reality, 

 must have felt a sense of security that even the incursions of their bar- 

 barian toes could hardly have disturbed. 



Soon after leaving the Casa del Eco, as we named the last ruins, our 

 trail bore away to the right upon the plateaus, which now begin to 

 encroach too closely upon the river to permit us to follow its course, and 

 we come under a second line of bluffs, which were gradually surmounted 

 also. Tlie evidences of former occupation continue as numerous as 

 ever, finding shape principally in cave-houses, all too near alike to bear 

 raucli further repetition. A novel feature at one point is shown in Fig. 

 o, Plate 18, where we have a smooth bluff of cream-colored sandstone 



]S'o. 1 3 



