372 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



to the end. The first 500 feet of ascent were over a long, steep slope of 

 debris, overgrown with cedar : then came alternate perpendiculars and 

 slopes. Immediately below the house was a nearly perpendicular 

 ascent of 100 feet, that puzzled us for a while, and which we were only 

 able to surmount by finding cracks and crevices into which fingers and 

 toes could be inserted. From the little ledges occasionally found, and 

 by stepping upon each other's shoulders, and grasping tufts of yucca, 

 one would draw himself up to another shelf, and then, by letting down 

 a stick of cedar, or a hand, would assist the other. Soon we reached a 

 slope, smooth and steep, in which tliere had been cut a series of steps, 

 now weathered away into a series of undulating hummocks, by which 

 it was easy to ascend, and without them, almost an impossibility. An- 

 other short, steep slope, aud we were under the ledge upon which was 

 our house, (Fig. 12, Plate III.) It was getting quite dark, so we delayed 

 no longer than to assure ourselves that it was all we hoped for, and to 

 prospect a way up v/hen we should return the next morning with the 

 photographic outfit. 



Bright and early, as soon as breakfast was dispatched, we commenced 

 the ascent. Mexico, our little pack-mule, with the apparatus upon her 

 back, by sharp tacks and lively scrambling over the rocks, was able 

 to reach the foot of the precipice of which I have spoken above, dp 

 this we hauled the boxes containing the camera and chemicals by the 

 long ropes taken from the pack-saddle. One man was shoved up ahead, 

 over the worst place, with the rope, and tying it to a tree, the others 

 easily ascended. 



The house stood upon a narrow ledge, which formed the floor, and 

 was overhung by the rocks of the clifl:'. The depth of this ledge was 

 about 10 by 20 in length, and the vertical space between ledge and 

 overhanging rock some fifteen feet. The house occupied the left-hand 

 half as we face it ; the rest being reserved as a sort of esplanade, a small 

 I)ortion of the wall remaining which cut it off from the narrow ledge 

 running beyond. The edges of the ledge upon which the house stood 

 were rounded off, so that its outside wall had to be built upon an incline 

 of about forty-five degrees ; the esplanade, too, had been extended by 

 three abutments, built out flush with the walls of the house, upon the 

 steeply-inclined slope, and giving supj^ort probably to a balustrade. 



The house itself, perched up in its little crevice like a swallow's nest, 

 consisted of two stories, with a total height of about 12 feet, leaving a 

 space of two or three feet between the top of the walls and the over- 

 hanging rock. We could not determine satisfactorily whether any other 

 roof had ever existed or whether the walls ran up higher and joined the 

 rock, but we incline to the first supposition. The ground-plan showed a 

 front room about 6 by 9 feet in dimensions, and back of it two smaller 

 ones, the face of the rock forming their back walls. These were each 

 about 5 by 7 feet square. The left hand of the two back rooms projected 

 beyond the front room in an L. The cedar beams, which had divided the 

 house into two floors, were gone, with the exception of a few splintered 

 pieces and ends remaining in the wall, just enough to show what they 

 were made of. We had some little doubt as to whether the back rooms 

 were divided in the same way, nothing remaining to prove the fact, 

 excepting holes in the walls, at the s*me height as the beams in the 

 other portion. In the lower front room are two apertures, one serving 

 as a door, and opening out upon the esplanade, about 20 by 30 inches 

 in size, the lower sill 24 inches from the floor ; and the other a small 

 outlook, about 12 inches square, up near the ceiling, and looking over 

 the caQon beneath. In the upper story, a window corresponding in 



