present semi-civilized people known as tbe Moquis, but return to 

 the mouth of Epsom Creek and describe the many curious remains 

 found north of the San Juan, all of which bear some relationship to 

 those of the Hovenweep already noticed. 



Fifteen miles up Epsom Creek a side caiion comes in from the left, 

 down which trickles a scanty stream of brackish water with the pecu- 

 liarity of taste and action which has given the name to the whole val- 

 ley. Camping here, we extended our observations up this lateral canon 

 some 8 or 10 miles in quest of ruins, and found them numerous enough 

 to satisfy our most earnest desire, although not of the importance of the 

 greater ones of the San Juan and De Chelly. All were of the small cave 

 kind, mostly mere "cubby-holes," but so smoke-blackened inside and 

 showing other marks of use as to convince us they had been long occupied 

 but not durihg any comparatively recent period. In the generality of 

 cases they were on small benches or in shallow caves situated near the 

 bed of the stream, but the farther up we went the higher they were 

 built. In one instance a bluff several hundred feet in height contains 

 half a dozen small houses sandwiched in its various strata, the highest 

 being up 150 feet, each of but one room, and one of them a perfect 

 specimen of adobe-plastered masonry, hardly a crack appearing upon 

 its smoothly-stuccoed surface. A short distance up from the entrance to 

 the CHhon a square tower (Fig. 2, Plate 18) has been built upon a com- 

 manding point of the mesa, and in a position, so far as any means at 

 our command are concerned, perfectly inaccessible. The stones of 

 which it is composed are of a very nearly uniform size, more so than in 

 any of the buildings we have seen west of the Hovenweep. 



Upon the opposite side of the main Epsom Creek Valley, and on top 

 of the high bluffs of sandstone which border it for nearly its whole 

 length, we found some cave-houses in a most singularly out-of-the-way 

 place — in the very last place in the world where one would expect to 

 find them. Scaling the bluff at the very imminent risk of our necks, 

 we came suddenly upon a broad open cave, near the top, containing the 

 usual style of stone-built and mud-plastered houses, divided into four 

 or h\'% apartments, of just the size and number that would be required 

 by an ordinary family of eight or ten persons. Farther up, on top of 

 the bluff, we found the remains of a circular tower 40 feet in diameter, 

 and very old, the stones all crumbled, rounded, and moss-covered. !N^ear 

 by were remains of two other cave-habitations. 



A few miles farther up the Epsom Valley, passing a number of old 

 ruins liardly worthy of mention, we came upon an imi)ortaut group that 

 was evidently the center of the surrounding population — a place of wor- 

 ship or of general congregation — an aboriginal shire-town. 



It liiy upon both sides of a small, dry ravine, some 20 or 30 rofis back 

 from the bed of the creek, and consisted of a main rectangular mass, 60 

 by 100 feet square, occupying quite an elevation, dominating all the 

 others. Just below it, and close upon the edge of the ravine, was a 

 round tower 25 feet in diameter ; and 75 feet below that, and also close 

 to the ravine, was a square building 20 feet across, nearly obscured by 

 a thicket of pifum-trees growing about it. On the opposite bank were 

 two small round towers, each 15 feet in diameter, with two oblong struc- 

 tures between, 12 by 15 feet square ; at right angles to these four, which 

 Avere arranged in a straight line, another square building occurred, the 

 same size as the one just opposite on the other bank. Portions of the 

 walls ot the towers remained, and a few courses of stone in the walls of 

 the smaller square buildiugs, but in the large ruin the walls were merely 

 indicated by great mouiuls of crumbling rock, with the .sulKlisisious 

 distinctly UT.uiced however, into four recta'.igular apartiuiMits. A short 



