342 EXTENTS AND PUEBLOS 



provisions. The interior, or front, rooms of the first story were 20 feet long 

 by 9 wide. We made out altogether one hundred habitable rooms in the 

 building, forming two sides of the square. If we take it as probable that 

 every room was inhabited by a family of four persons, the former popula- 

 tion would have been 400. The rooms were all connected by openings in 

 the walls, 3 feet by 2 ; the window-openings were about 2 feet square. 

 The wood used for the construction of the doors and windows was juniper, 

 which grows profusely on the sandy mesas, requiring but little moisture ; 

 it is in a good state of preservation. As no steps were found leading to 

 the upper stoiy, the ascent was probably made by ladders, as is still the 

 custom among the Pueblos of New Mexico. In the southern corner of the 

 yard are the walls of two cylindrical buildings, 20 and 30 feet in diameter, 

 having six pillars on the periphery, equidistant, most likely remnants of 

 the estufas. The bottoms of these buildings were about 3 feet lower than 

 the surrounding yard. Pieces of painted pottery, an article seen in many 

 localities in New Mexico, were found scattered about profusely. Similar 

 fragments were also found by the survey parties on the heights of the Sierra 

 Blanca in Arizona, on the Mogollon mesa, in the San Francisco Mountains, 

 on Mount Taylor, in the Canon de Chelle, and, in short, everywhere, in 

 deserts as well as on the forest-covered peaks. 



I searched the surrounding ground for the former burial-place, but in 

 vain. No trace of former irrigating-ditches.can be found in the neighboring 

 valley of the Chaco, but there are traces of a former road to Abiquiu, sixt3^ 

 miles off, where ruins have also been found, two in the immediate vicinity 

 and three between Abiquiu and El Rito. Dr. Yarrow made excavations in 

 these ruins, and in the old burying-ground about four miles below Abiquiu, 

 on the Chama. 



The province of Jemez. — One of the most interesting pueblos is Jemez, 

 on the river of that name, sixty miles southwest of Santa Fe\ This town 

 has a language of its own, and one which is unintelligible to any other 

 tribe. About forty years ago the then existing pueblo of Pecos, on the Rio 

 Pecos, used the same dialect, but the inhabitants, becoming reduced in 

 numbers, joined the pueblo of Jemez, which is one of the most prosperous 

 in New Mexico, having fine fields, large irrigating-ditches, and extensive 



