398 EEPOET UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



A sketch of one of the door-ways is given in Figure 2. The outline is 

 accurately drawn, but there is a little too much regularity in the stone- 

 work. It will be seen that the aperture is of very nearly the same 

 width above and below, which is rather unusual, since, in these ruins, 

 as well as in those farther south, the door- ways and windows are, as a 

 rule, narrower at the top. This drawing also shows the manner of em- 

 ploying a number of small straight beams of wood as lintels, for the 

 purpose, evidently, of strengthening the masonry above. 



There are two of these exterior door- ways only, one opening into each 

 story of the front room from the unoccupied part of the niche; these 

 are shown in Figure 3, a sketch of the interior of the front room 

 taken from the side /. There is only a low wall between this room and 

 the room c, while small door-ways communicate with the other apart- 

 ments. There is a small rectangular window, 22 inches high by 30 wide, 

 in the front wall, from which a fine view can be had of the deep narrow 

 valley below. 



Figure 4 is designed to show the extraordinary situation of these 

 houses. Whether viewed from below or from the heights above, the 

 effect is almost startling, and one cannot but feel that no ordinary cir- 

 cumstances could have driven a people to such places of resort. 



There are no ruins of importance in the canon of the Mancos above 

 the two-story house. Indistinct remains occur on the bottoms in a 

 number of places, and a few small houses were observed in the cliffs. 

 The most interesting of these is built upon a ledge about 40 feet above 

 the trail, and is nearly midway between the two-story house and the 

 head of the canon. It does not differ in any essential point from the 

 ruins already described. I shall therefore pass it by, in order to take 

 up two very interesting groups of ruins that occur about 20 miles to 

 the northwest. 



Between the Mesa Yerde and the Late Mountains, of which TJte Peak 

 is the culminating summit, there is a long, deep valley or strip of low- 

 land that connects the great lowland of the Lower Mancos with the 

 canon-cut plain that rises toward the Dolores. The southern end of this 

 depressed strip drains into the Mancos, the northern into the McElmo. 

 The latter stream heads along the north base of the Mesa Verde within 

 five miles of the Mancos at the point were it enters the canon, and 

 flows westward, passing along the north base of Ute Mountain, curv- 

 ing around to the southwest and reaching the San Juan nearly 10 miles 

 beyond the Utah line. The large depressed area drained by this stream 

 contains a great number of ruins, many of which have not yet been 

 examined. 



PLATE XXXIX. — THE TRIPLE-WALLED TOWER. 



The group partially illustrated in this plate is situated on a low bench 

 within a mile of the main McElmo, and near a dry wash that enters 

 that stream from the south. It seems to have been a compact village 

 or community-dwelling, consisting of two circular buildings and a great 

 number of rectangular apartments. The circular structures or towers 

 have been built, in the usual manner, of roughly-hewn stone, and rank 

 among the very best specimens of this ancient architecture. The great 

 tower is especially noticeable on account of the occurrence of a third 

 wall, as seen in the drawing and in the plan at a. In dimensions it is 

 almost identical with the great tower of the Eio Mancos. The walls 

 are traceable nearly all the way round, and the space between the two 

 outer ones, which is about 5 feet in width, contains fourteen apart- 



