36 



below the passage-way. lu two or three instances, as shown in the plan, 

 the front wall has given way, precipitating all but the back wall to the 

 bottom of the clifts. Holes hav^e been drilled into the rock in a few 

 places beneath the walls, evidently to assist in retaining them in their 

 places. 



The whole front of this portion of the town is wij:hout an aperture, 

 save very small windows, and is perfectly inaccessil3le, both from the 

 solidity of the wall and the precipitous nature of the fonndation-rock 

 beneath it. Admittance was probably- gained from near the circular 

 building in the center, by ladders or any other well-guarded approach 

 over the rocks. ' 



In Fig. 3 of the same plate we have a view of the other half of the 

 town. From the estvfa we have to climb np about 8 feet, reaching a 

 narrow ledge that starts out from the bluff; from here to the farther 

 end the buildings are built irregularly over the uneven surface of rocky 

 debris, each house conforming to the irregularities by which it is sur- 

 rounded, but all presenting the general arrangement of a cluster about 

 a central court, as at d and e, that served, in all probability, as corrals for 

 their domestic animals. In some places near these corrals the under 

 surface has broken away, disclosing a solidly-packed bed of old manure, 

 very nearly resolved back into dust again, and through which were scat- 

 tered twigs of willow and sticks of cedar. Some of the rooms are quite 

 large, from 15 to 25 feet iu length ; the very small rooms surround- 

 ing them were probably for storage, and in some cases seem to have 

 answered the purpose of fire-places, as at /, for baking pottery, very 

 likely. None of these buildings, as far as we could discover, were 

 of more than one story in height. All the doorways or windows opened 

 from within the courts or corrals, and were unusually large, reaching in 

 some cases the whole height of the wall. The front line was so broken 

 down that it was impossible to tell to what extent it was accessible, 

 although we may reasonabl3' infer that it was not so, with theexce[)tion, 

 perhaps, of a way for themselves and their animals. The bluff itself 

 was easy to ascend, being composed of large rocks filled up with smaller 

 debris. 



In their construction these buildings differ from any we have yet 

 met, in the thickness, or rather thinness, of their walls, being very 

 seldom more than a foot, and more frequently between that and six 

 inches thick. The stones of which they are built are in long thin slabs, 

 trimmed down roughly to the required size and laid in an abundance 

 of adobe mortar. In most of the rooms, both the inside and outside 

 have been smoothly plastered over with clay, and, where protected over- 

 head, still retain that coating in fair preservation. 



A few rods to the right is another smaller recessed bench, upon which 

 are built two small houses, each about ten feet square, and one with its 

 roof still entire. The approach from below is a smooth, rocky surface, 

 so steep as to be almost impossible to ascend, with no remains of any 

 other easier method of getting up. 



At the foot of the bluff beneath that portion of the ruin marked c7, in 

 the ground-plan, a -low bench rises about ten feet above the surround- 

 ing valley, upon which are indications of old buildings and of other 

 remains — our so-called burial places. Chipped flint work was plentiful, 

 as we found a number of very beautiful specimens of arrow-points, per- 

 forators, knives, and some domestic utensils. In a mass of debris at 

 the foot of the two-story tower, seven large earthen pots of rough 

 indented ware were found imbedded in the soil and filled with earth. 

 They were too fragile to admit of transportation upon pack-animals, so 



