610 | The Anctent Puéblos. [ September, 
no indications of door-ways. The rooms were connected inter- 
nally by openings, but the building was entered from the exterior 
by ladders placed against the walls. We named the place Casa 
del Eco (the house of the echo) from the discovery that words 
spoken below the building, at the-mouth of the cave, were dis- 
tinctly repeated, producing at first a most startling effect. 
Near the Casa del Eco and on the northern bank of the Rio 
San Juan, another important group of buildings was discovered, the 
ground plan of which may be seen in fig. 2, plate vi. The walls had 
entirely disappeared, scarcely one stone standing on another, but 
the plan of the original structure could be readily traced. 
Thus far I have confined my descriptions, with one exception, 
to some of the mouldering ruins which are to be found in the _ 
cafions and cliffs of the zorthern tributaries of the San Juan river. 
To the south of this stream and in the valley drained by it, these 
same remains occur numerously in New Mexico and Arizona. 
‘Along the Rio de Chelly, for instance (an intermittent arroyo 
which penetrates northwardly through Arizona and joins the San 
Juan at the head of its cañon), there are many ancient structures 
which present some novel and striking features in pre-historic | 
architecture. About eight miles from the mouth of the Chelly is _ 
a collection of cliff-buildings. which extends uninterruptedly for a 
distance of nearly six hundred feet along a rock-recess, fifty feet 
above the river-bed. The walls of some of the dwellings are 
still standing ‘¢hree stories high, and one of the houses is so per- 
fectly preserved that its wooden roof, constructed of cedar poles, ` 
still remains intact. This Pucblo de Chelly is the most extensive | 
cliff-settlement yet discovered in this region, and photographs of 
. it could be only obtained in sections. Fig. 3 of plate vii repre- 
sents the southern or eee end of the communal building: 
re 
while photographing the ruins, nearly a hundred beautifully fash-; ; 
ioned arrow-points and several fine specimens of pottery were. 
-~ picked up. Across the channel of the stream, in the open val 
le . 
places of the departed have been marked out in the Pueblo man 
ner by "a songs ME on edge. In some instances the hear. al 
graves have been indicated ee Se tall headstones. 
