| OCR Text |
Show 7 ' apdax ruin, containing three well- marked apartments. Its walls are 6 or 7 feet high, and, unlike those of the preceding examples, do not wmcide with the cardinal points. South of this, and occupying the extreme southern end of the terrace, are a number of small circles and mounds, while an undetermined number of diminutive mounds are distributed among the other ruins. To the east of the Indian trail, as shown in the plate, are a number of iDclosures of lesser importance, which, from want of time, were not closely examined. Nowhere about these ruins are there any considerable indications of defensive works, and the village, which is scattered over an area fully two miles in circuit, has no natural advantages whatever. Neither are there traces of ditches, nor of anything that might throw important light upon the habits or occupations of the people. A few arrow- heads and mi-note cutting- implements were picked up. Countless chips of jasper, obsidian, and flint were scattered around, and the soil was literally full of fragments of painted and ornamented pottery. On the opposite side of the river, and at intervals above and below, are isolated groups of ruins and heaps of debris- certainly the remains of dwellings. These seem to have been distributed very much as dwelling- houses would be in the rural districts of civilized and peaceable communities. It is possible that there are undiscovered ruins on this stream equally important with that described; for, in pursuing my geologic investigations, I was compelled to take a long detour to the westward from this point, returning to the La Plata again a few miles above its junction with the San Juan. On this occasion, while riding through a desertlike locality, quite naked and barren, much resembling the well- known MaKwbe* terreSj I was surprised to observe fragments of pottery strewn around, and presently a number of ruins, in a very reduced state and almost covered by the drifting sand, and this six or eight miles from water. On the high, dry table- lands, on all sides, fragments of pottery were picked up. What could have induced people to build and dwell in such a locality it is useless to surmise. 6B0UP OF CAVE- DWELLINGS AND TOWERS ON THE RIO SAN JUAN. Plate II. On the San Juan Kiver, about thirty- five miles below the mouth of the La Plata and ten miles above the Mancos, occurs the group of ruins figured in Plate II. The river is bordered here by low lines of bluffs formed from the more compact portions of the Middle Cretaceous shales. At this particular place, the vertical- bluff face is from 35 to 40 feet in height. I observed, in approaching from above, that a ruined tower stood near the brink of the cliff, at a point where it curves outward toward the river, and in studying it with my glass detected a number of cavelike openings in the cliff- face about half- way up. On examination, I hand them to have been shaped by the band of man, but so weathered oat and changed by the slow process of atmospheric erosion that the evidences of art were almost obliterated. The openings are arched irregularly above, and generally quite shallow, being governed very much in contour and depth by the quality of the rock. Tbe work of excavation has not been an extremely great |
