384 REPORT UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



Tbe ruins of this region, like most others of the extreme West and 

 South, are the remnants in a great measure of stone structures. To 

 what extent wood and adobe were used can hardly be determined. It 

 is evident, however, that a great portion of the villages and dwellings 

 of the lowlands have been of material other than stone, frequently 

 doubtless of rubble and adobe combined. 



As to situation, they may be classed very properly under three heads : 

 (1) lowland or agricultural settlements ; (2) cave dwellings ; and (3) cliff- 

 houses or fortresses. 



Those of the first class are chiefly on the river-bottoms, in close prox- 

 imity to water, in the very midst of the most fertile lands, and located 

 without reference to security or means of defence. 



Those of the second are^iu the vicinity of agriculturallands, but built 

 in excavations in low-bbra faces of the Middle Cretaceous shales. The 

 sites are chosen also, I imagine, with reference to security ; while the 

 situation of the cliff-houses is chosen with reference to security only. 

 They are built high up in the steep and inaccessible cliffs, and have the 

 least possible degree of convenience to field or water. 



As to use, the position for the most part determines that. The low- 

 land ruins are tbe remains of agricultural settlements, built and occu- 

 pied much as similar villages and dwellings are occupied by peaceable 

 and unmolested peoples of to-day. The cave-dwellers, although they 

 may have been of the same tribe and contemporaneous, probably built 

 with reference to their peaceable occupations as well as to defense, but 

 it is impossible to say whether or not they made these houses their 

 constant dwelling-places. The cliff houses could only, have been used 

 as places of refuge and defense. During seasons of invasion and war, 

 families were probably sent to them for security, while the warriors 

 defended their property or went forth to battle ; and one can readily 

 imagine that when the hour of total defeat came, they served as a last 

 resort for a disheartened and desperate people. 



In form, the parallelogram and circle predominate, and a consider- 

 able degree of architectural skill is displayed. Where the conformation 

 of the ground permits, the squares are 'perfect squares and the circles 

 i^erfect circles. The greater part of the ordinary structures are square 

 or rectangular ; while attached to each group, and sometimes without 

 indications of contiguous buildings, are circular ruins frequently re- 

 sembling towers. These are the most pretentious structures, being often 

 as much as forty feet in diameter, and in many cases having double or 

 triple walls. They are solidly built of hewn stone, dressed on the out- 

 side to the curve, neatly jointed, and laid in mortar. 



In the larger towers the space between the outer walls is invariably 

 divided by heavy partition-walls into a number of apartments, while a 

 circular depression, or estufa* occupies the centre of the enclosure. 



It seems evident, from the extraordinary form of these structures and 

 the unusual care shown in their construction, that they were not de- 

 signed for the ordinary uses of dwelling or defence. It has been ob- 

 served that, among nearly all the ancient tribes of North America, the 

 grandest and most elaborate works of art were the offspring of theirj 

 superstitions, and it does not seem at all improbable that these great! 

 towers had a religious origin. | 



In the inhabited pueblos of to-day there are underground rooms, fre-l 

 quently circular, used as council-chambers as well as for the perform-j 

 ance of the mysterious rites of their religion. Similar chambers occur, ?i 



* A Spanish word signifying " sweat-house" or council-house. 



