426 REPORT UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



A few miles farther up the Epsom Valley, passing a number of old 

 ruins hardly worthy of mention, we came upon an important group, that 

 was evidently the centre of the surrounding population— a place of wor- 

 ship or of general congregation — an aboriginal shire-town. 



It lay upon both sides of a small, dry ravine, some 20 or 30 rods back 

 from the bed of the creek, and consisted of a main rectangular mass, 60 

 by 100 feet square, occupying quite an elevation, dominating all the 

 others. Just below it, and close upon the edge of the ravine, was a 

 round tower 25 feet in diameter ; and 75 feet below that, and also close 

 to the ravine, was a square building 20 feet across, nearly obscured by 

 a thicket of pinon-trees growing about it. On the opposite bank were 

 two small round towers, each 15 feet in diameter, with two oblong struct- 

 ures between, 12 by 15 feet. At right angles to these four, which were 

 arranged in a straight line, another square building occurred, the same 

 size as the one just opposite on the otber bank. Portions of the walls 

 of the towers and a few courses of stone in the wails of the smaller 

 square buildings remained, but in the large ruin the walls were merely 

 indicated by great mounds of crumbling rock, with, however, the sub- 

 divisions distinctly marked into four rectangular apartments. A short 

 distance above plenty of water was found in the bed of the creek ; flue, 

 large cottonwoods bbrdered the stream, and the broad, fertile valley 

 seemed a far more desirable place of residence than the forbidding des- 

 olation of the Chelly. 



About thirty miles from the San Juan we left Epsom Creek, and 

 stopped for a night at the head of the caSons which run between it and 

 the Montezuma. We were in the midst of quite a thickly-settled, an- 

 cient population, the ruins of their habitations consisting almost entirely 

 of the kind just described — low, rectangular mounds, the original struct- 

 ures so completely destroyed as not to leave one stone upon another, 

 yet accompanied always by an abundance of the same kind of pottery 

 we have found so universally distributed over other localities, f^fot the 

 slightest difference can be detected in its general quality, nor can any 

 one style of manufacture or ornamentation be said to be peculiar to 

 any one district or group of ancient habitations. It is the same with 

 arrow-points and like work. The similarity of the workmanship exhib- 

 ited in the cliff-houses, and also in the more extensive structures of the 

 lowlands, although covering in all probability two different periods of 

 their existence, convinces us that the builders were all one and the same 

 people, scattered in families and communities throughout the valleys 

 and canons. 



After leaving this last group of ruins, all traces of them suddenly 

 ceased, and in the four or five days spent in the examination of the 

 country upon the southern, eastern, and northern flanks of the Sierra 

 Abajo, not a single vestige was found ; and this in, without exception, 

 the most pleasant spot we have touched since leaving La Plata. Clear 

 and cold mountain-streams ripple down through ravines overhung by 

 groves of willow, maple, and quaking-aspen, with splendid oaks and 

 stately pines scattered over the uplands, and an abundance of rich, nu- 

 tritious grass everywhere, that our poor, half-starved animals knew well 

 bow to appreciate.' The black-tail deer and grouse were in goodly num- 

 bers, starting up from under our very noses, and leading our hunters 

 many a long chase. 



Leaving half of our little party of six, and all the animals but those 

 •we rode and the trusty Mex. with the apparatus, we made our way 

 down through the deep' and narrow caiions that lead from the plateau 

 country into the great basin that lies between the Sierra Abajo and the 



