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Show 139 northern end, and the deep rugged cafion through which the Gallinas Creek breaks its way, cutting the range asunder to its very base. Frequently dry, the stream, from the recent rain- falls, now runs its banks full. Just west of the stream are the Bad Lands, or dry, barren Cretaceous deposits, wherein are found the fine fossil- beds. A succession of hog- backs, or uplifts with cliff- faces to the east and gradual slopes conformable to the dip of the rock on the west, extend to the divide between the Atlantic and Pacific drainage. They form, w ith the Gallinas Mountains, a valley by no means attractive to the eye, scant in vegetation, even the sage- brush aud grease wood becoming scarce, the scattered pifion- trees alone breaking the forbidding hue of hot sandy drifts. Pushing west from the Gallinas we cross the divide, here but 7,561 feet elevation, mid descend upon the Pacific slope by even grade, easily to be made favorable to wagons, and follow the heavy Navajo trail which runs down Canon Largo from Ojo San Jose\ The rain falling in torrents brings but the consolation that, if we have to make si camp where there is no permanent water, we can probably find enough in pools to partially satisfy the animals. , The day's march was 26 miles through a hard rain, and we camped with only such water as we had carried in our water- kegs aud that soaked up by our clothes, tents, and packs. The following day we passed Ojo de Nuestra Sefiora, a fine bubbling spring, situated in a drain running into Cafion Largo. The ground round about is marshy; large bowlders are scattered over the ground low mesas of sandstone inclose the drain, and numerous trails concentrate at this one volcanic spring in the desert. From here we traveled southward, over a gently rolling country, here and there broken by low mesas, with little to distinguish them one from the other, the drainage- lines all converging toward Cafion Largo. After some 18 miles7 travel a sudden descent or cliff, is reached. A deer- trail gives us means of descending some 400 feet into Cafion Blanco drainage, which drain unites farther north with Cafion Largo near its outlet, San Juan River. The grazing is very poor, and the country would be almost worthless, but for the lignite which crops at the head of these cafions. Our route lay to the south, our objective point being the Pueblo Pintado, an ancient rain, before referred to in your reports as Pueblo BODito. It is situated on the south side of the Chaco Creek ; creek simply because it flows water in the rainy season, but perfectly dry nine months of the year. Its southern and western walls are still standing, showing in its present state at least four stories; the outlines of one hundred and three rooms are easily traced on the ground- floor. The walls on the east, south, and west Bides have been at right angles to each other; that on the northern front facing the water has been an arc of an arch, with three large towers built so as to defile all the ground between the building and the stream. In the interior has been a court with several circular rooms, like the present estufcu or assembly- rooms of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. The whole structure is of stone and wood; no evidence of iron is found. The masonry consists of thin plates of sandstone, dressed on the edges, laid in a coarse mortar, now nearly as hard as the stone itself. Every chink is filled. The usual stone is from half inch to an inch thick, with occasional layers of stone 2 or 3 inohes thick occurring regularly every 15 to 18 inches' interval, evidently to strengthen the masonry. The exterior face of the walls is as smooth as one built of brick and beautifully plumbed. At the base, 2 | feet through, the wall at each story decreases in thiokness by the width of a slight beam, on which rest the girders of the floor, the larger ones setting in the wall. There are no doors opening on the side away from the court, and the only means of light seem to have been through the inner rooms and through some small port- holes opening outward on the stories above the first. There are no perfect arches found in the building; the only approach to such being in having the successive layers over the windows extend one beyond the other till one stone can span the space. Usually the doors and windows were capped by lintels of wood, which were but slight round poles, with their ends, as were those of all the girders, hammered off, apparently by some stone implement. In one of the circular rooms was found what appeared to be an altar, built out from the side of the wall in the very center of the building; it was probably here that their worship, since lost or perpetuated in an altered form by the present Pueblos, was carried on. The most striking peculiarities of the buildings were the wonderfully perfect angles of the walls, the care with which each stone had been placed, the perfection of the circular rooms as to their cross- section, and the great preservation of the wood; With an architecture so advanced in other respects, their glaring inability to tie joints in corners, each wall being built up against and not united with the others, makes it comparatively weak; indeed, it is to be wondered at that the walls are still standing, depending as they do each upon its own base, without abutments. Usually the Chaco is dry; doubtless at one time there was plenty of water, for an apparent difference in the weeds and grass just above the building indicates that the ground was once cultivated. We found no implements other than a section of a |
