JACKSON.] EUINS OF CHACO CANON, NEW MEXICO. 443 



PUEBLO DEL ARROYO. 



Three bundred yards below are tbe ruins of the Pueblo del Arroyo, so 

 named probably because it is on the verge of the deep arroyo which 

 traverses the middle of the caiion. This was given only a passing 

 glance by Simpson, but it well repays more careful inspection. It is of 

 the rectangular form, but with the open space or court facing a few 

 degrees north of east. The west wall is 268 feet long and the two wings 

 125 and 135 feet respectively; their ends connected by a narrow and 

 low semicircular wall. The wings are the most massively built and 

 better preserved portion of the whole building; that portion which lies 

 between them and back of the court being much more ruinous and dis- 

 similar in many respects. The walls of the south wing, which are in the 

 first story very heavy and massive, are still standing to the height of 

 the third story. Many of the vigas are still in place, and are large and 

 perfectly smooth and straight undressed logs of pine, averaging 10 

 inches in thickness ; none of the smaller beams or other wood-work now 

 remains. There is one estufa 37 feet in diameter in this wing. In the 

 north wing the walls are standing somewhat higher, but do not indicate 

 more than three stories, although there was probably another. The 

 ■vigas of the second floor project through the wall for a distance of 

 about 5 feet along its whole northern face the same as in the Pueblo 

 Huugo Pavie. There are two estufas; one, near the east end of the wing 

 which is 27 feet in diameter, was three stories in height. The floor 

 beams are removed, but the remains show this plainly. The interior i& 

 nearly filled up, but it was originally over 25 feet in depth. The ruins 

 of the other estufa are insignificant compared with this, and was prob- 

 ably of but one low room. Facing the centre of the court are remains 

 of what were three circular rooms. At the end of the wings, outside of 

 the building, are faint outlines of other circular apartments or enclosures^ 

 shown by dotted lines on the plan. In the central portion of the ruin, 

 between the two wings, some rooms have been j)reserved entire. I 

 crawled down into one of these through a small hole in the covering, and 

 found its walls to consist of delicate masonry, thinly jflastered and white- 

 washed. The ceiling was formed in the usual manner, fine willow brush 

 supporting the earthen floor above instead of the lath like-sticks or thin 

 boards that were used in the exceptional cases noted. The arroyo 

 is undermining the soil close to the southwest corner of the pueblo, and 

 has already exposed some old lines of masonry, which on the surface do 

 not give any indications whatever of their existence. About 200 yards 

 up the arroyo are the ruins of a small stone building similar to the ones 

 which appear in connection with some of the preceding ruins. Its upjier 

 surface is mound-like, showing only faiut traces of masonry, but the arroyo 

 has undermined one corner, exposing well-laid walls extending down 5 or 

 G feet below the general level of the valley. The arroyo is here 16 feet 

 deep, but there is an older channel cutting in nearer the large ruin, of only 

 about one-half this depth. It is in this that most of the exposed walls 

 are shown. Below the remains of these walls, and extending out into 

 the main arroyo to a depth of 14 feet below the surface, is an undulat- 

 ing stratum of broken pottery, flint-chippings, and small bones firmly 

 embedded in a coarse gravelly deposit. I traced this stratum for sev- 

 eral rods along the smooth perpendicular face of the wash, where it was 

 very clearly defined, and picked out many pieces of excellently painted 

 shreds of pottery. At tlie lowest point of this stratum, and where it had 

 been undermined by the waters which sometimes flow in this arroyo, a 

 human skull was exposed, so firmly embedded in the dense, rock-like 



