Chapter 23

Stone Mortar—Kincaid Flat.

TUOLUMNE COUNTY.

Of all the counties Tuolumne has apparently proved the richest in antiquarian remains. From the mining tunnels which penetrate Table Mountain there was taken in 1858 a stone mortar holding two quarts, at a depth of three hundred feet from the surface, lying in auriferous gravel under a thick strata of lava. In 1862 another mortar was found at a depth of three hundred and forty feet, one hundredand four of which were composed of lava, and eighteen hundred feet from the mouth of the tunnel. This relic is in Mr Voy's collection, accompanied by a sworn statement of the circumstances of its finding. Dr Snell is said to have had in his possession in 1862 a pendant or shuttle of silicious slate, similar to others of which I shall give a cut; spear-heads six or eight inches long, and broken off at the hole where they were attached to the shaft; and a scoop, or ladle, of steatite. These relics were found under Table Mountain at the same depth as the preceding, together with fossil bones of the mastodon and other animals, and are preserved in the Smithsonian Institute and in the museum of Yale College. The cutrepresents a stone mortar and pestle, found at Kincaid Flat in clayey auriferous gravel, sixteen or twenty feet below the surface, where many other stone implements, with bones of the mastodon, elephant, horse, and camel, have been found at different times. A bow handle, or shuttle, of micaceous slate found here will be shown in another cut with similar relics from a different locality.[XII-14]

At Shaw's Flat, with bones of the mastodon, a stone bead of calc-spar, two inches long and the same in circumference, was taken from under a strata of lava at a point three hundred feet from the mouth of the tunnel. The granite mortar shown in the cut, holding about a pint, came from the same mining town.

Granite Mortar—Shaw's Flat.

Granite Mortar—Gold Springs Gulch.

Granite Dish—Gold Springs Gulch.

At Blanket Creek, near Sonora, stone relics and bones of the mastodon were found together in 1855.[XII-15]Wood's Creek was another locality where stone relics with fossil bones, including those of the tapir, are reported to have been dug out at a depth of twenty to forty feet. The mortar and pestle shown in the cut is one of many stone implements found, with fossil bones, at Gold Springs Gulch, in 1863, at a depth of sixteen feet in auriferous gravel, like the most of such relics. It is twelve and a half inches in diameter, weighs thirty pounds, and holds about two quarts. The cross-lines pecked in on the sides with some sharp instrument, are of rare occurrence if not unique. Among the other implements found here, are what Mr Voy describes as "discoidal stones, or perhaps spinal whorls. They are from three to four inches in diameter, and about an inch and a halfthick, both sides being concave, with centre perforated. It has been suggested that these stones were used in certain hurling games." They are of granite and hard sandstone. The author has heard of similar relics in Ohio, Denmark, and Chili. Another relic, found at the same place in 1862, with the usual bones under twenty to thirty feet of calcareous tufa, is a flat oval dish of granite, eighteen inches and a half in diameter, two or three inches thick, and weighing forty pounds. It is shown in the cut, and, like the preceding, is preserved in Mr Voy's cabinet, now at the University of California. Texas Flat was another locality where fossil bones were found with fresh-water shells.[XII-16]

CALAVERAS COUNTY.

Calaveras County has also yielded many interesting relics of a past age, of the same nature as those described in Tuolumne.[XII-17]The famous 'Calaveras skull' was taken from a mining shaft at Altaville, at a depth of one hundred and thirty feet beneath seven strata of lava and gravel.[XII-18]The evidence was sufficient to convince Prof. Whitney and other scientific men that this skull was actually found as claimed, although on the other hand some doubt and not a little ridicule have been expressed about the subject. Many stone mortars and mastodon-bones have been found about Altaville and Murphy's, but not under lava.[XII-19]

At San Andrés, in 1864, according to sworn statements in Mr Voy's possession, large stone mortars were taken from a layer of cemented gravel six feet thick, lying under the following strata:—coarse sedimentary volcanic material, five feet; sand and gravel, one hundred feet; brownish volcanic ash, three feet; cemented sand, four feet; blueish volcanic sand, fifteen feet. At the Chili Gulch, near Mokelumne Hill, the skull of a rhinoceros is reported to have been found in 1863.[XII-20]

STONE HAMMERS.

Mortar from Shingle Springs.

Stone Hammer—Spanish Flat.

The mortar shown in the cut was found in gravelat a depth of ten feet, at Shingle Springs in El Dorado County. At Georgetown and vicinity there were found at different dates, large stone dishes very similar to that at Gold Springs Gulch, shown in a preceding cut; grooved stones like those at Spanish Flat, soon to be mentioned; and mortars resembling that at Kincaid Flat. At Spanish Flat were found several oval stones with grooves round their circumference, as shown in the preceding cut, and weighing from a pound and a half to two pounds. They were apparently used as hammers or weapons by fitting a withe handle round them at the groove. Many other mortars and stone implements were taken from the same locality, including two pendants, shuttles, or bow-handles, very well worked from greenstone, five or six inches long, and about one inch thick in the middle. These two relics, together with a similar one from Table Mountain before alluded to, are shown in the cut. At Diamond Spring mortars were found at a depth of a hundred feet, and both fossil bones and stone relics have been taken from time to time from the mines about Placerville.[XII-21]

Stone Implements—Spanish Flat.

In Placer County, mastodon bones are reported at Rockland, and stone mortars and other implements at Gold Hill and Forest Hill. One dish at the latter place was much like that at Gold Springs Gulch, shown in a preceding cut.[XII-22]

In Nevada County stone implements have been found at different dates, from ten to eighty feet below the surface, at Grass Valley, Buckeye Hill, Myer's Ravine, Brush Creek, and Sweetland.[XII-23]

Fossil bones of extinct animals and stone implements like those that have been described, and which I do not deem it necessary to mention particularly,since such mention would be but a repetition of what has been said, with a list of depths and localities, have been found, according to Mr Voy's explorations, in Butte County at New York Flat, Oroville, Bidwell's Bar, and Cherokee Flat; in Stanislaus about Knights Ferry; in Amador at Volcano, Little Grass Valley, Jackson, Pokerville, Forest Home, and Fiddletown; in Siskiyou at Trench Bar, on Scott River, at Yreka, and Cottonwood; in Trinity about Douglas City; in Humboldt, at Ferndale and Humboldt Point; in Merced at Snelling on Dry Creek; in Mariposa, at Horse Shoe Bend, Hornitos, Princetown,—a mortar thirty-six inches in diameter—Buckeye Ravine, Indian Gulch, and Bear Creek; in Fresno at Buchanan Hollow and Millerton; and at several points not specified in Tulare and Fresno.[XII-24]

Relic from San Joaquin Valley.

MISCELLANEOUS MINE RELICS.

The cut shows a stone relic discovered in digging awell in the San Joaquin Valley, imbedded in the gravel thirty feet below the surface. "The material is sienite and the instrument is ground and polished so as to display in marked contrast the pure white of the feldspar and the dark-green or black of the hornblende. It is in the form of a double-cone, one end terminating in a point, while the other end is blunted, where it is pierced with a hole which instead of being a uniform gauge, is rimmed out, the rimming having been started from the opposite sides. In examining this beautiful relic, one is led almost instinctively to believe that it was used as a plummet for the purpose of determining the perpendicular to the horizon. So highly-wrought a stone would hardly have been used as a sinker for a fishing-net: it may have been suspended from the neck as a personal ornament. When we consider its symmetry of form, the contrast of colors brought out by the process of grinding and polishing, and the delicate drilling of the hole through a material so liable to fracture, we are free to say it affords an exhibition of the lapidary's skill superior to anything yet furnished by the Stone Age of either continent," at least such is Mr Foster's conclusion. Prof. Whitney states that he has two or three similar implements, and that they are generally regarded as sinkers for use in fishing.[XII-25]Mr Taylor tells us that he saw in 1852, on a high mesa, probably a league in circumference, on or near the Merced River, thousands of small mounds, five or six feet high, and apparently of earth only.[XII-26]Capron says that on the plains of San Joaquin "are found immense mounds of earth, which present evidences of their great antiquity. It is supposed that they were thrown up, by the Indians,for observatories, from which to survey the floods, or as places of resort for safety when the plains became suddenly inundated, and the ranging hunters were caught far in the interior."[XII-27]In the banks of a creek near Martinez, resting on yellow clay, under five feet of surface soil, a mortar and pestle were recently found by some boys, according to a local newspaper. The mortar was about sixty inches in circumference, and weighed nearly two hundred pounds. "It has the form of a slightly flattened well-rounded duck egg; and has evidently been artificially shaped in exterior form, as well as in the bowl, and looks as fresh as if it had but yesterday been turned off from the Indian sculptor's hands, while the polish of the pestle is smooth and lustrous, as if it had been in daily use for the hundred or two years, at least, that it must have been lying under the inverted mortar, as shown by the level of five-feet accumulations of the valley-surface stratum of soil above the yellow clay upon which it was found, together with the partially-decomposed remains of a human frame."[XII-28]

SHELL MOUNDS.

SAN FRANCISCO RELICS.

Relics from a Shell-Mound—San Francisco.

Only one class of Californian antiquities remains to be mentioned—the shell mounds. They are probably very numerous, and a thorough examination of their contents could hardly fail to be here as it has proved in Europe, a source of very important results in connection with ethnological studies. Little or nothing has been done in the way of such an examination, although a few mounds have been opened in excavating for roads or foundations of buildings. These few have yielded numerous stone, bone, and shell implements and ornaments, together with human remains, as is reported, but the relics have been for the most part lost or scattered, and submitted to no scientific examination and comparison. Dr Yatessent to the Smithsonian Institute, in 1869, a collection of relics taken from mounds in Alameda County. It is not expressly stated that these were shell mounds, although I have heard of the existence of several in that county. This collection included, "stone pestles, perforators or awls, sinkers, a phallus, spindles, a soapstone ladle, stone mortar and pestle, pipe bowls, shell and perforated stone ornaments, an ancient awl and serrated implements of bone."[XII-29]A very large shell mound is reported near San Pablo, in Contra Costa County. It is said to be almost a mile long and a half a mile wide, and its surface is covered with shrubbery. The shells composing this mound are those of the oyster, clam, and mussel, all having been exposed to the action of fire, and nearly all broken. Fragments of pottery made of red clay are found on the surface and near the top.[XII-30]Many smaller shell mounds are reported in the vicinity of San Mateo, and one has been opened in making a road at Saucelito during the present year, furnishing many stone relics, of which I have no particular description. Quite a number of mounds are known to exist on the peninsula of San Francisco, several being in the vicinity of the silk factory on the San Bruno road. One of them covered an area of two acres, was at least twenty-five feet deep, and from it were taken arrow-heads, hammers, and many other relics. One of these shell mounds, near the old Bay View race track is being opened by Chinamen engaged in preparation for some building, as I write this chapter. Mr James Deans, of whose explorations I shall have more to say when treating of the antiquities of British Columbia, has brought me a large number of stone and bone relics taken from this deposit, the different classes of which are illustrated in the accompanying cut. Fig. 1 is an awl of deer-bone, and fig. 2 is another implement of thesame material, curiously grooved at the end. These bone implements occur by thousands, being from three to eight inches in length. Fig. 3, 4, are perhaps stone sinkers, or as is thought by some, weights used in weaving, symmetrically formed, the former from diorite, the latter from sandstone, and not polished. Fig. 3 is four inches long, and an inch and a half in its greatest diameter. Hundreds of these pear-shaped weights are found in the mounds, but the end is usually broken off, as is the case with fig. 4. Fig. 5 is an implement carved from a black clayey slate, and has a brightly polished surface. It is four inches long, one inch in diameter at the larger end, and three quarters of an inch at the smaller. It is hollow, but the bore diminishes in size regularly from each end, until at a point about an inch and a half from the smaller end it is only a quarter of an inch in diameter. I have no idea what purpose this implement was used for, unless it served as a handle for a small knife or awl, or possibly as a pipe.

Such is the rather fragmentary and unsatisfactory information I am able to present respecting aboriginal relics in California. Doubtless there are many relics, and valuable scraps of information respecting the circumstances of their discovery, in the possession of individuals, of which no mention is made in this chapter—indeed, I expect to hear of a hundred such cases within a month after the appearance of this volume; but many years must necessarily elapse before a satisfactory and comprehensive account of the antiquities of our state can be written, and in the meantime there is a promising field for patient investigation. The difference, after all, between this chapter and many of those that precede it, in respect to thoroughness, is more apparent than real; that is, it results naturally from the nature of north-western remains. For if there were architectural monuments, pyramids, temples, and fortifications, or grand sculptured idols anddecorations, in California and her sister states, there is no doubt that such monuments would have been ere this more thoroughly explored than those of Palenque; and on the other hand, respecting the only classes of antiquities found in the Northwest, there yet remains as much or more to learn in Mexico and Central America as in the Pacific United States.

ANTIQUITIES OF NEVADA.

Respecting the antiquities of Nevada, I have only the following account of a ruined city in the south-eastern part of the state, discovered by what is spoken of as the 'Morgan Exploring Expedition,' and described by a correspondent of theNew York Tribune. "On October fifteenth, in the centre of a large valley we discovered some Indian salt works, but there were no signs of their having been lately used. In the southern section of the same valley, was a curious collection of rocks, mounds and pillars, covering several acres in extent and resembling the ruins of an ancient city. We saw some remnants of what had once been arches, with keystones still perfect, and a number of small stone pillars constructed with a peculiar kind of red mortar or cement, set upright about twenty feet apart, as if they had been used to support an aqueduct for conveying water from a large stream half a mile distant, into the outskirts of the city. In some places the lines of streets were made distinctly visible by the great regularity of the stones. These streets were now covered with sand many feet deep, and seemed to run at right angles to each other. Some of the stones had evidently been cut into squares with hard tools, although their forms had been nearly destroyed by centuries of time. The impression forced upon our minds was that the place had been once inhabited by human beings somewhat advanced in civilization. Many traders noticed the existence of similar ruins in other sections of the country between the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. They may probably be the sites of onceflourishing fields and habitations of the ancient Aztecs."[XII-31]It is just possible that the New Mexican type of ruins extends across into Nevada as it is known to into Utah and Colorado, and that a group of such remains was the foundation of the report quoted. It is quite as likely, however, that the report is groundless.

SALT LAKE VALLEY.

Mr Rae examined a group of burial mounds in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah, and took from them "flint spear heads, flint arrow-heads, stone implements and fragments of rude pottery." These mounds had the appearance of natural sand-hills, as the people in the vicinity supposed them to be.[XII-32]An article in theSalt Lake Telegraphis the only other authority that I find on these mounds, and this does not specify their locality. "The mounds, as they exist to-day, do not exhibit much uniformity, but this can be accounted for by the disintegrating action of rains and winds, to which they have been so long subject. Immediately north, south and west of the largest barrow, traces can be seen of others now all but obliterated, and the locality bears unmistakable evidences of once being the site of very extensive earthworks. In one mound or barrow only, the largest, were remains found, and they were exposed on or very near the surface of the sandy soil, in one or two large hollows near the centre. The other barrows were destitute, at least on the surface, but what there may be below it is hard to say. Of all the relics, except those of charred bone, which are comparatively plentiful, and some in a state of petrifaction, that of pottery is the most abundant, and to this day some of it retains a very perfect glaze. Much of it, however, is rough, and from the specimens we saw, the art does not appear to have attained to so high a degree of perfection as among the ancient nations that inhabited the Mississippi and Ohio valleys.The largest piece of pottery seen was not above three inches square, and it appeared, as did all the other pieces, to have formed a portion of some rounded vessel, probably a cinerary urn or something of that kind. Other articles were seen, such as a fragment of pearly shell, several other shells, a white cylindrical bead, a small ring probably a bead also, and a stone knife." There were also several nicely shaped arrow-heads, of obsidian, agate, rock-crystal, carnelian, and flint. Granite mills are mentioned in addition to the other relics.[XII-33]The same authority speaks of an extensive fortification or entrenched camp at the head of Coon's Cañon, about twenty miles south-west of Salt Lake City. The works are now from four to eight feet high, and the places of entrance are distinctly marked.

Rock-Inscriptions—Utah.

ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS.

Remy and Brenchley note the finding of colored pottery at Cedar City, indicating "that the Mormon city is built on the site of a considerable city belonging to the Aztecs," for there is no state anywhere in the north where the Aztecs did not live at some time or other. Whole specimens of pottery are not found, but the fragments are said to show a high degree of perfection; the same authors claim that furnaces for the manufacture of pottery are still seen, and further say: "At some miles to the north as well as to the south of Cedar,—to the north near Little Salt Lake, to the south near Harmony,—are to be seen great rocks covered over with glyphic inscriptions, some portions of which, sketched at random, are accurately represented in our engraving. These inscriptions or figures are coarsely executed; but they all represent objects easy of recognition, and for the most part copied from nature."[XII-34]From Carvalho I quote that "on Red Creek cañon, six miles north of Parowan there are very massive, abruptgranite rocks, which rise perpendicularly out of the valley to the height of many hundred feet. On the surface of many of them, apparently engraved with some steel instrument, to the depth of an inch, are numerous hieroglyphics, representing the human hand and foot, horses, dogs, rabbits, birds and also a sort of zodiac. These engravings present the same time-worn appearance as the rest of the rocks; the most elaborately engraved figures were thirty feet from the ground. I had to clamber up the rocks to make a drawing of them. These engravings evidently display prolonged and continued labor, and I judge them to have been executed by a different class of persons than the Indians, who now inhabit these valleys and mountains—ages seem to have passed since they were done. When we take into consideration the compact nature of the blue granite and the depth of the engravings, years must have been spent in their execution. For what purpose were they made? and by whom, and at what period of time? It seems physically impossible that those I have mentioned as being thirty feet from the valley, could have been worked in the present position of the rocks. Some great convulsion of nature may have thrown them up as they now are. Some of thefigures are as large as life, many of them about one-fourth size." The same author reports the remains of an adobe town a mile further down the cañon, with implements—remains said to have been found there by the first Mormons that came to the valley.[XII-35]Mr Foster quotes from a Denver paper an item recording the discovery of a mound in southern Utah, which yielded relics displaying great artistic skill;[XII-36]and finally I take from Mr Schoolcraft's work cuts showing inscriptions on a cliff in a locality not clearly specified.[XII-37]Some remains in the south-eastern corner of the state I shall mention in connection with those of Colorado.

Rock-Inscriptions—Utah.

About half a mile west of Golden City, Jefferson County, Colorado, Mr Berthoud reports to the SmithsonianInstitution the existence of some ancient remains, at the junction of two ravines. They consist of a central mound of granitic sand not over twelve inches high, with traces of five or six shallow pits about it; all surrounded by traces of a wall consisting of a circle of moss-covered rough stones partially imbedded in the soil. South of the central mound is also a saucer-shaped pit, measuring twelve feet in width and from fifteen to eighteen inches in depth. At this point buffalo-bones and fragments of antlers are plentiful, and pieces of flint with plates of mica have also been discovered.[XII-38]Mr Farnham speaks of a ruined city covering an area of one mile by three fourths of a mile, with streets crossing at right angles, buildings of rough trap rock in cement, a mound in the centre, and much glazed pottery—all this on the north bank of the Colorado, four hundred miles up the river, and as likely to be in the territory of Colorado as anywhere.[XII-39]Mr Foster quotes from a Denver newspaper a report of large granite blocks, of the nature of 'dolmens' standing in an upright position, on the summit of the Snowy Range;[XII-40]and Taylor had heard through the newspapers of pyramids and bridges in this territory.[XII-41]

There remain to be described in this part of the country only the remains of aboriginal structures in the south-western corner of Colorado and the south-eastern corner of Utah, remains which, although made known to the world only through a three or four days' exploration by a party of three men, are of the greatest interest and importance. They are found in the valleys or cañons of the rivers Mancos and McElmo, northern tributaries of the San Juan, on the southern tributaries of which riverare the ruins, already described, of the Chaco and Chelly cañons.

JACKSON'S EXPEDITION.

In September, 1874, Mr W. H. Jackson and Mr Ingersoll, connected with the United States Geological and Geographical Survey party, guided by Capt. John Moss, an old resident perfectly familiar with the country and its natives, descended both the cañons referred to, for the express purpose of examining ancient structures reported to exist there. Notwithstanding the brief duration of their exploration, as they understood their business and had a photographic apparatus along, their accounts are extremely complete and satisfactory. Mr Ingersoll published an account of the trip in theNew York Tribuneof Nov. 3, 1874; and Mr Jackson in the Bulletin of the Survey, printed by government.[XII-42]The latter account was accompanied by fourteen illustrations, and Prof. J. V. Hayden, Geologist in charge of the Survey, has had the kindness to furnish me also with the original photographs made during the expedition.

The Rio Mancos rises in the Sierra La Plata, and flows south-westward, at first through a park-like valley, then cuts a deep cañon through the Mesa Verde, and finally traverses an open plain to join the San Juan. In the valley between the mountains and the mesa, there are abundant shapeless mounds of débris, which on examination are found to represent blocks of square buildings and circular enclosures all of adobe, very similar apparently to what we have seen in the Salado valley of Arizona. There is another resemblance to the southern remains in the shape of indented and painted pottery, strewn in great abundance about every mound, in fragments rarely larger than a dollar,—not a greenback, but a silver dollar, the former being no standard for archæological comparisons. I shall make no further mention of pottery; the reader may understand that inthis whole region, as in Arizona and New Mexico, it is found in great quantities about every ruin that is to be mentioned.

RIO DE LOS MANCOS.

The cañon through the Mesa Verde is on an average two hundred yards wide, and from six hundred to a thousand feet deep, with sides presenting, as Mr Jackson says, "a succession of benches, one above the other, and connected by the steep slopes of the talus. Side-cañons penetrate the mesa, and ramify it in every direction, always presenting a perpendicular face, so that it is only at very rare intervals that the top can be reached." Mr Ingersoll says: "Imagine East River a thousand or twelve hundred feet deep, and drained dry, the piers and slips on both sides made of red sandstone, and extending down to that depth, and yourself at the bottom, gazing up for human habitations far above you. In such a picture you would have a tolerable idea of this Cañon of the Rio Mancos." For four or five miles after entering the cañon, the shapeless heaps of adobe débris were of frequent occurrence on the banks of the stream. The general characteristic was "a central mass considerably higher and more massive than the surrounding lines of subdivided squares. Small buildings, not more than eight feet square, were often found standing alone apparently." The high central portion suggests a terraced structure like the Casa Grande of the Gila. One of the buildings on the bottom, measuring eight by ten feet, was of sandstone blocks, about seven by twelve inches, and four inches thick, laid in what seemed to be adobe mortar. Somewhat further down the adobe ruins were found often on projecting benches, or promontories of the cliff, some fifty feet above the stream. Here they were circular, with a depression in the centre, and generally in pairs. Cave-like crevices along the seams were often walled up in front, so as to enclose a space sometimes twelve feet long, but oftener forming "cupboard-like inclosures of about thesize of a bushel-basket." A small square, formed by rough stone slabs, set up endways in the earth, was also noticed.

Cliff House—Mancos Cañon.

The first stone building particularly described, and one of the most wonderful found during the trip, is that shown in the cut. The most wonderful thing about it was its position in the face of the cliff several hundred feet above the bottom, on a ledge ten feet wide and twenty feet long, accessible only by hard climbing with fingers and toes inserted in crevices, or during the upper part of the ascent by steps cut in the steep slope by the aborigines. The cliff above overhangs the ledge, leaving a vertical space of fifteen feet. The building occupies only half the length of the ledge, and is now twelve feet high in front, leaving it uncertain whether it originally reached the overhanging cliff, or had an independent roof. The ground plan shows a frontroom six by nine feet, and two rear rooms each five by seven, projecting on one side so as to form an L. There were two stories, as is shown by the holes in the walls and fragments of floor-timbers. A doorway, twenty by thirty inches and two feet above the floor, led from one side of the front room to the esplanade, and there was also a window about a foot square in the lower story, and a window or doorway in the second story corresponding to that below. Opposite this upper opening was a smaller one opening into a reservoir holding about two hogsheads and a half, and formed by a semicircular wall joining the cliff and the main wall of the house. A line of projecting wooden pegs led from the window down into the cistern. Small doorways afforded communication between the apartments. The front portion was built of square and smoothly faced sandstone blocks of different sizes, up to fifteen inches long and eight inches thick, laid in a hard grayish-white mortar, very compact and hard, but cracked on the surface like adobe mortars. The rear portions were of rough stones in mortar, and the partition walls were like the exterior front ones, and seemed to have been rubbed smooth after they were laid.

The interior of the front rooms was plastered with a coating of a firm cement an eighth of an inch thick, colored red, and having a white band eight inches wide extending round the bottom like a base-board. There were no other signs of decoration. The floor was the natural rock of the ledge, evened up in some places with cement. The lintel of the upper doorway or window was of small straight cedar sticks laid close together, and supporting the masonry above; the other lintels seem to be of stone. A very wonderful feature of this structure was that the front wall rests on the rounded edge of the precipice, sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees, and the esplanade, or platform, at the side of the house was also leveled up by three abutments resting on this slope, where "it would seem that a pound's weight might slide them off."

TOWERS ON THE RIO MANCOS.

Ground Plan—Mancos Tower.

Round Tower—Mancos Cañon.

The cut shows the ground plan of a round stone tower of peculiar form. The diameter is twenty-five feet, and that of the inner circle twelve feet,[XII-43]the walls being eighteen and twelve inches thick, standing in places fifteen feet high on the outside and eight feet on the inside. This tower stands in the centre of a group of faintly traced remains extending twenty rods in every direction. The stones of which it was built are irregular in size, laid in mortar, and chinked with small pieces. The cut presents a view of thistower. The next cut illustrates the small cliff-houses very common in the walls of the cañon. This and its companions are from fifty to a hundred feet above the trail; it is five by fifteen feet and six feet high, the blocks composing the walls being very regular and well laid. Some of these houses were mere walls in front of crevices in the cliff. So strong are the structures that in one place a part of the cliff had become detached by some convulsion, and stood inclined at quite an angle, taking with it a part of one of the walls, but without overthrowing it. Small apertures are so placed in all these cliff-structures as to afford a look-out far up and down the valley. Rude inscriptions are scratched on the cliff in many places, bearing a general resemblance to those farther south, of which I have given many illustrations.

Cliff-Dwelling—Mancos Cañon.

One of the most inaccessible of the cliff-buildings is shown in the cut. It is eight hundred feet high, and can only be reached by climbing to the top of the mesa, and creeping on hands and knees down a ledge only twenty inches wide. The masonry was veryperfect, the blocks sixteen by three inches, ground perfectly smooth on the inside so as to require no plaster. The dimensions were about five by fifteen feet, and seven feet high. The aperture serving as doorway and window was twenty by thirty inches and had a stone lintel. Near by but higher on the ledge was another ruder building. These raised structures were invariably on the western side of the cañon, but those on the bottom were scattered on both sides of the river.

Cliff-Dwelling—Mancos Cañon.

On the bottom "the majority of the buildings were square, but many round, and one sort of ruin always showed two square buildings with very deep cellars under them and a round tower between them, seemingly for watch and defence. In several cases a large part of this tower was still standing." One of these typical structures is shown in the following cut. It is twelve feet in diameter, twenty feet high, with walls sixteen inches thick. The window facing northward is eighteen by twenty-four inches. The two apartments adjoining the tower, the remains of which are shown in the cut, are about fifteen feet square. They seem to have been originally underground structures, or at least partially so.

Watch-Tower—Mancos Cañon.

At the outlet of the cañon the river turns westward, flowing for a time nearly parallel with the San Juan, which it joins very nearly at the corner of the four territories. Many groups of walls and heaps were visible in the distance down the valley, but the explorers left the river at this point and bore away tothe right along the foot of the mesa until they reached Aztec Spring, very near the boundary line. "Immediately adjoining the spring, on the right, as we face it from below, is the ruin of a great massive structure of some kind, about one hundred feet square in exterior dimensions; a portion only of the wall upon the northern face remaining in its original position. The débris of the ruin now forms a great mound of crumbling rock, from twelve to twenty feet in height, overgrown with artimisia, but showing clearly, however, its rectangular structure, adjusted approximately to the four points of the compass. Inside this square was a circle, about sixty feet in diameter, deeply depressed in the centre, and walled. The space between the square and the circle appeared, upon a hasty examination, to have been filled in solidly with a sort of rubble-masonry. Cross-walls were noticed in two places; but whether they were to strengthen the walls or had divided apartments could only be conjectured. That portion of the outer wall remaining standing was some forty feet in length and fifteen in height. The stones were dressed to a uniform size and finish.Upon the same level as this ruin, and extending back, I should think, half a mile, were grouped line after line of foundations and mounds, the great mass of which was of stone, but not one remaining upon another. All the subdivisions were plainly marked, so that one might, with a little care, count every room or building in the settlement. Below the above group, some two hundred yards distant, and communicating by indistinct lines of débris, was another great wall, inclosing a space of about two hundred feet square. Only a small portion was well enough preserved to enable us to judge, with any accuracy, as to its character and dimensions; the greater portion consisting of large ridges flattened down so much as to measure some thirty or more feet across the base, and five or six feet in height. This better preserved portion was some fifty feet in length, seven or eight feet in height, and twenty feet thick, the two exterior surfaces of well-dressed and evenly-laid courses, and the centre packed in solidly with rubble-masonry, looking entirely different from those rooms which had been filled with débris, though it is difficult to assign any reason for its being so massively constructed. It was only a portion of a system extending half a mile out into the plains, of much less importance, however, and now only indistinguishable mounds. The town built about this spring was nearly a square mile in extent, the larger and more enduring buildings in the centre, while all about were scattered and grouped the remnants of smaller structures, comprising the suburbs."

CAÑON OF THE McELMO.

Tower on the McElmo, Colorado.

Round Tower on the McElmo.

Four miles from the spring is the McElmo, a small stream, dry during a greater part of the year. At the point where the party struck this stream, portions of walls, and heaps of débris in rectangular order were scattered in every direction; among which two round towers were noticed, one of them with double walls, like that on the Mancos, but larger, being fifty feet in diameter. Following down the McElmo cañonaboriginal vestiges continue abundant, including cliff-dwellings like those that have been described, but only forty or fifty feet above the valley, and also the square tower shown in first cut. It stands on a squaredetached block of sandstone forty feet in height. The walls of this building were still fifteen feet high in some places, and there were also traces of walls about the base of the rock. Another double-walled round tower fifty feet in diameter found near the one last named is shown in the second cut.

Building on the McElmo—Utah.

RUINS ON THE McELMO.

Still further down the cañon, across the boundary line into Utah, ruins continue abundant. A red sandstone butte standing in the middle of the valley, one hundred feet high and three hundred long, has traces of masonry on its summit, apparently intended to form a level platform, and on one side, at mid-height, the structures shown in the cut. The upper wall is eighteen feet long and twelve feet high, and the blocks composing it are described as more regularly cut than any before seen. The only access to the summit of the butte was by climbing through the window of the building. Other remains, including many circular depressions of considerable depth, and a square tower with one round corner, are scattered about near the base of this butte, orcristone. The next cut shows one of the cave-dwellings near by, formed by walling up the front of a recess in the cliff.

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