JACKSON.] RUINS OF SOUTHWEST COLOEADO, &C. 417 



shows a solid, wellcoustructed masonry. No indications whatever 

 could be found of any passage-ways, nor could we expect to find any so 

 near their base, for all the apartments were probably entered by lad- 

 ders, the same as in other buildings of this order that we have found in 

 other localities. 



Upon either side and back of this building were low, indefinite lines 

 of earth, not more than 12 to 18 inches above the surrounding surface, 

 enclosing areas from 40 to 60 feet in diameter, which were probably cor- 

 rals for domesticated animals; the walls being composed of adobe or 

 turf brought from the valley below, would, of course, wash down to a 

 barely perceptible ridge. 



In the face of the bluff immediately under this ruin, and upon a re- 

 cessed bench situated about half-way between top and bottom, is a row 

 of little "rock shelters." A strata of a rotten shaly sandstone has 

 been weathered or dug out, probably both, for a distance of 300 feet 

 along the bluff, to a depth of about six feet, leaving a firm floor, and a 

 projecting ledge overhead, with just room enough to walk along without 

 stooping. A continuous row of buildings occupied this bench, although 

 most of them have tumbled into the river, and none have their front 

 walls remaining. Door-ways through each of the dividing walls 

 afforded access along the whole line. A few rods up stream, and in the 

 same line of the bluff as the preceding, was another little niched cave- 

 house, 14 feet in length, 5 feet high at the centre and 6 deep, divided 

 into two equal apartments; a small square window, just large enough 

 for one to crawl through, was placed midway in the wall of each half. 

 We well might ask whether these little "cubby-holes" had ever been 

 used as residences, or whether, as seems at first most likely, they might 

 not have been " caches," or merely temporary i)laoes of refuge. While, 

 no doubt, many of them were such, yet in the majority the evidences 

 of use and the presence of long-continued fires, indicated by their 

 smoke-blackened interiors, prove them to have been quite constantly 

 occupied. Among all dwellers in mud-jDlastered houses it is the prac- 

 tice to freshen up their habitations by repeated applications of clay, 

 moistened to the proper consistency, and spread with the hands, the 

 thickness of the coatiug depending upon its consistency. Every such 

 application makes a building appear i3erfectly new, and many of the best 

 sheltered cave-houses have just this appearance, as though they were 

 but just vacated. 



A quarter of a mile back from the river, rising from the level bench, 

 is a long narrow hill about 100 feet in height, commanding an ex- 

 tended view up and down the valley, upon the summit of which is 

 one of the circular, mound-like enclosures which occur so frequently 

 on both the highlands and the lowlands. It evidently has some con- 

 nection with the group below on the river's edge, for there are no other 

 ruins within several miles. 



Continuing down the river, under the great bluffs which border it 

 closely, we find many ruins of the " rock -shelter " kind occurring fre- 

 quently in all sorts of positions, from the level of the valley to a height 

 of over 100 feet, and from the smallest kind of a " cache," not larger 

 than a bushel-basket, to buildings that probably sheltered several fam- 

 ilies. One group consists of a row of three small houses built upon a 

 ledge running horizontally along the perpendicular face of the bluff*, 

 about 60 feet above the trail immediately below it. The ledge was so 

 narrow rhat the buildings occupied every available inch of its surface. 

 As near as we could judge from below, each was about 5 feet wide and 

 10 long, with apertures through their end walls, and windows in the outer 

 27 G 



