JACKSON.. EUINS OF SOUTHWEST COLORADO, &C. 421 



dated. Upon a ledge on the opposite side of the caQoii is a row of four 

 houses, not easily reached, one of which still retained a roof; and in 

 another case, a shelter was formed by inclining a row of sticks across 

 the opening of the cave, with the outside thickly plastered with clay. 

 It had every appearance of being a more recent structure, yet it was in 

 the midst of much older looking ones, and in an almost, if not quite, 

 inaccessible position. 



Over the level surface of the valley the older form of ruins, indicated 

 principally by broken pottery, occurred in several places, and also, on 

 a bench bordering the San Juan, just above Epsom Creek, are a num- 

 ber of small squares arranged in circles, that we have heretofore as- 

 sumed to be places of sepulture. 



In going southward, up the Chelly, we find it necessary to avoid the 

 canons and make a detour to the right, crossing a rugged depression in 

 the line of bluffs, to the valley of a small tributary, then over another 

 divide across the upturned edges of the great fold spoken of in the first 

 part of this article, to quite an expansion of the valley of the Chelly, 

 about one mile square, covered with sage-brush and drifted sand, 

 on the upper or right-hand side of which we were fortunate enough to 

 find two springs of cool, fresh water, a most delicious luxury where the 

 temperature of the water of the San Juan, the coldest to be had, was 

 80 degrees, and the temperature of the atmosphere away up in the hun- 

 dreds during the day-time. 



The surface of this valley, or small plain, contains indications of old 

 ruins, about which we picked up many arrows, knives, and other stone 

 implements, with the ever-present pottery. The wash of the Chelly 

 skirts one side of the valley, with perpendicular bluffs 200 to 400 feet 

 high, closely bordering its other bank. Above and below, the opposite 

 bluffs rise again, throwing the wash into deep caiions. An examination 

 of the exceedingly tortuous course of the wash and its accompanying 

 bluff-line fot a distance of 5 miles up and down revealed but one ruin 

 (Plate L), a very important and interesting one, however. 



This cave-town occurs in a great bend of the encircling line of bluffs, 

 where the wash makes a wide detour, and is perched upon a recessed 

 bench about 70 feet above the valley. It is overhung by a solid wall of 

 massive sandstone extending up over 200 feet higher. The left-hand 

 side of the bench supporting the buildings, sweeps back in a sharp curve 

 about 80 feet under the bluff, and then gradually comes to the front 

 again until, on the extreme right hand, the buildings are built upon a 

 mass of debris, but partially protected overhead. The total length over 

 the solidly-built portion of the town is 545 feet, with in no place a greater 

 width than 40 feet. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 

 rooms upon the ground-plan, with some uncertainty existing as to 

 many of the subdivisions on the right hand in the vicinity of d and e j 

 but in the cave-built portion every apartment was distinctly marked. 

 Midway in the town is a circular room of heavily and solidly built 

 masonry, that was probably intended for an estufa or council hall ; 

 that is, if we can reasonably assume any similarity in the methods of 

 building or worship to those of the Pueblos of New Mexico. Start- 

 ing from this estufa is a narrow passage running back of the line of 

 houses on the left to the two-story group, a, where it ends abruptly, 

 further access being had through the back row of rooms, or over the 

 roofs of the lower front row, probably the latter, for it is likely that 

 these roofs served as a platform from which to enter the rooms back 

 of it. At the extreme left-hand end a still higher ledge occurs, with the 

 overhanging wall coming down close to it, its outer edge enclosed by a 



