REPORT ON THE ANCIENT RUINS EXAMINED IN 1875 AND 1877 



CHAPTER I. 



KUIXS OP SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO AND ADJACENT 



TERRITORY. 



In continuing the investigation (commenced in 1874) of the very in- 

 teresting ruins scattered throughout the San Juan Basin, I proceeded 

 to Parrott City, a frontier mining-camp on La Plata River, where I pro- 

 cured the services of Harry Lee as guide and interpreter. Mr. E. A. 

 Barber, naturalist, and special correspondent of the New York Herald, 

 was also of the party. Providing ourselves with the supplies which 

 had been forwarded to this point via Tierra Amarilla, we started out 

 late in July, journeying westwardly to the point on the Hovenweep 

 from which we had turned back last year, and where we resumed our 

 explorations. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 



The Hovenweep {deserted valtey) is a tributary of the McElmo, which, 

 together with the wide-spreading arms of the Montezuma, drains into 

 the San Juan all that portion of the country lying between the Mesa 

 Yerde and the Sierra Abajo, covering iu the aggregate some 2,500 

 square miles. Their labyrinthine caQons head close to the Dolores on 

 the north, and ramify the plateaus in every direction with an intermi- 

 nable series of deep, desolate gorges, and wide, barren valleys. There 

 is not a living stream throughout this whole region. During the sum- 

 mer months water occurs iu but very few places, generally in pockets, 

 sometimes in springs, where the excess, if any, is soon swallowed up by 

 the hot and thirsty sands. The rainy season is in winter and the 

 early spring months, when the water is more generously distributed, 

 being then found in the many basins scattered over the bare tops 

 of the mesas, as well as in the beds of the canons, the lower temper- 

 ature of the colder season preventing the rapid evaporation of summer 

 and autumn weather. As a great proportion of the surface of this re- 

 gion is a bare bed of rock, with a soil in the lowlands nearly imper- 

 vious to moisture, the winter showers soon gather their waters together 

 in great floods in the main channels, and, rushing down in a solid 

 body, form the deep " washes" so characteristic of the country. But 

 these torrents are short-lived, and it is only by noting the height of 

 the drift-material lodged upon the trunks of the venerable cottonwoods 

 bordering the banks that we can fully realize such great bodies of water 

 ever having existed in so dusty a bed. Every caiion and valley has its 

 corresponding wash, worn perpendicularly down through the dry, easily- 

 eroded soil, forming circuitous but excellent pathways. In some valleys, 

 where the drainage is considerable, these washes frequently attain a 

 depth of from 30 to 40 feet, and are impassable for miles. 



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