422 KEPORT UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



"wall, with a little store-room in its farther corner. This space was re- 

 served, i)robably, as an out-door working-room. All the buildings of this 

 half are of one story, with the exception of the group w, the residence 

 probably of the chief or of some other important family in the commu- 

 nity. The rooms just back of it are the store-rooms of the family, where 

 the corn and squashes were put away for the winters consumption. 

 At the place marked &, near these storerooms, there are two half round 

 inclosures of stonework, that are very likely the remains of small reser- 

 voirs or springs. The rock back of them is dug out beneath, and had^ 

 even in the dry season, when we were there, a damp appearance, as 

 though water was not far removed, and might easily be coaxed to the 

 surface. The front line of wall of this left side of the town is built upon 

 a steep angle of smooth rock, with the interior of the apartments tilled 

 up with earth so as to make their floors level, bringing them a little 

 below the passage-way. In two or three instances, as shown in the plan, 

 the front wall has given way, precipitating all but the back wall to the 

 bottom of the cliffs. Holes have been drilled into the rock in a few 

 places beneath the walls, evidently to assist in retaining them in their 

 places. 



The whole front of this portion of the town is without an aperture, 

 save very small windows, and is perfectly inaccessible, both from the 

 solidity of the wall and the precipitous nature of the foundation-rock 

 beneath it. Admittance was probably gained from near the circular 

 building in the centre, by ladders or any other well-guarded approach 

 over the rocks. 



Going to the right from the estufa we have to climb up about 8 feet, 

 reaching a narrow ledge that starts out from the bluff. From here to 

 the farther end the buildings are built irregularly over the uneven sur- 

 face of rocky debris^ each house conforming to the irregularities by which 

 it is surrounded, but all, as at d and e, presenting the general arrange- 

 ment of clusters about central courts, that served, in all probability, as 

 corrals for their domestic animals. In some places near these corrals 

 the under surface has broken away, disclosing a solidly-packed bed of 

 old manure, very nearly resolved into dust, and through which were 

 scattered twigs of willow, fragments of pottery, and sticks of cedar» 

 Some of the rooms are quite large, from 15 to 25 feet in length. The 

 very small rooms surrounding them were probably for storage, and in 

 some cases seem to have answered the purpose of fire-places, as at/, for 

 baking pottery, very likely. Kone of these buildings, as far as we could 

 discover, were of more than one story in height. All the door-ways or 

 windows opened from within the courts or corrals, and were unusually 

 large, reaching in some cases the whole height of the wall. The front 

 line was so broken down that it was impossible to tell to what extent it 

 was accessible, although we may reasonably, infer that, with the excep- 

 tion, perhaps, of a way for themselves and their animals, it was not 

 readily so. The bluff itself was easy to ascend, being composed of large 

 rocks, the spaces between being filled with smaller debris. 



In their construction these buildings differ from any we have yet met, 

 in the thickness, or rather thinness, of their walls, being very seldom 

 more than a foot, or more frequently between that and six inches thick. 

 The stones of which they are built are in long, thin slabs, roughly 

 trimmed down to the required size, and laid in an abundance of adobe 

 mortar. In most of the rooms, both the inside and outside have been 

 smoothly plastered with clay, and, where iDrotected overhead, still retain 

 that coating in fair preservation. 



A few rods to the right is another smaller recessed bench, upon which. 



