378 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



space between the square and the circle appeared, upon a hasty examin- 

 ation, to have been filled in solidly with a sort of rubble-masonry. Cross- 

 walls were noticed in two places ; but whether they were to strengthen 

 the walls or divided apartments could only be conjectured. That portion 

 of the outer wall remaining standing is some 40 feet in length and 15 in 

 height. The stones were dressed to a uniform size and finish. Upon 

 the same level as this ruin, and extending back some distance, were 

 grouped line after line of foundations and mounds, the great mass of 

 which is of stone, but not one remaining upon another. All the subdi- 

 visions are plainly marked, so that one might, with a little care, count 

 every room or building in the settlement. Below the above group, some 

 two hundred yards distant, and communicating by indistinct lines of 

 debris, is another great wall, inclosing a space of about 200 feet square. 

 Only a small portion is well enough preserved to enable us to judge, 

 with any accuracy, as to its character and dimensions; the greater por- 

 tion consisting of large ridges flattened down so much as to measure 

 some 30 or more feet across the base, and 5 or 6 feet in height. This 

 better-preserved portion is some 50 feet in length, 7 or 8 feet in height, 

 and 20 feet thick, the two exterior surfaces of well-dressed and evenly- 

 laid courses, and the center packed in solidly with rubble-masonry, look- 

 ing entirely different from those rooms which had been filled with debris, 

 though it is difficult to assign any reason for its being so massively 

 constructed. It was only a portion of a system extending out into the 

 plains, of much less importance, however, and now only of indistin- 

 guishable mounds. The town built about this spring is nearly a square 

 mile in extent, the larger and more enduring buildings in the center, 

 while all about are scattered and grouped the remnants of smaller struc- 

 tures comprising the suburbs. 



It was sunset by the time we had secured the photographic views 

 necessary to illustrate the leading features of this group. A camp had 

 to be found, a thing very easily done in most localities, but here one very 

 important constituent was wanting. Sage-brush and grass abounded, 

 but water was sadly deficient. However, by good luck, 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 known locally as the McElmo, flows westwardly into the 

 San Juan ; and is for the greater portion of the year but a deep dry 

 gulch. 



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

 which, at this point, is 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 is 

 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 is a great mass, of which it is 

 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 Ohaco. Upon the southeast 

 corner of this group, and upon the very edge of the mesa, are 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, is a 

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

 group covers a space of about one hundred yards square ; while ad- 

 joining it on the mesa is group after group upon the same general plan, 



