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Show 18 beyond the Utah line. The large depressed area drained by this stream contains a great number of ruins, many of which have not yet beeu examined. PLATE VIII.- THE TRIPLE- WALLED TOWER. The group partially illustrated in this plate is situated on a low bench within a mile of the main McElino, and near a dry wash that enters that stream from the south. It seems to have been a compact village or commuuity- d welling, consisting of two circular buildings and a great number of rectangular apartments. The circular structures or towers have been built, in the usual manner, of roughly- hewn stone, and rank among the very best specimens of this ancient architecture. The great tower is especially noticeable on accouut of the occurrence of a third wall, as seen in the drawing and in the plan at a. In dimensions it is almost identical with the great tower of the Rio Mancos. The walls are traceable nearly all the way around, and the space between the two outer ones, which is about five feet in width, contains fourteen apartments or cells. The walls about one of these cells are still standing to the height of 12 feet; but the interior cannot be examined on account of the rubbish which fills it to the top. No openings are noticeable iu the circular walls, but door- ways seem to have been made to communicate between the apartments; one is preserved at d. The inner wall- has not been as high or strong as the others, and has served simply to inclose the estufa. This tower stands back about one hundred feet from the edge of the mesa and near the border of the village. The smaller tower, b, stands forward on a point that overlooks the shallow gulch ; it is 15 feet in diameter; the walls are 3£ feet thick and 5 feet high on the outside. Beneath this ruin, in a little side gulch, are the remains of a wail twelve f^ t high and twenty inches thick. The remaiuder of the village is in such a state of decay as to be hardly traceable among the artemisia and rubbish. The apartments number nearly a hundred, and seem, generally, to have been rectangular. They are not, however, of uuiform size and certainly not arranged in regular order. The walls are marked by low lines of loose rubble which show no stone in place, and I am inclined to believe that they have never been raised to any great height. It is not impossible that they have been, originally, of a species of rubble- masonry such as is seen in some of the great casas farther south, and that these meager remains are all that is left of an imposing structure, but the total want of regularity both in the form and size of the apartments seems inconsistent with such a conclusion. In reality they are more like a cluster of pens such as are used by the Moqui tribes for the keeping of sheep and goats. The site of this village can hardly have been chosen on account of its defensive advantages, nor on account of the fertility of the surrounding country. The neighboring plains and mesas are as naked aud barren as possible. The nearest water is a mile away, and during the drier part of the season the nearest running water is in the Bio Dolores, nearly fifteen miles away. To suppose an agricultural people existing in such a locality, with the present climate, is manifestly absurd. Yet every isolated rock and bit of mesa within a circle of miles is strewn with remnants of human dwellings. PLATE IX.- RUINS AT " AZTEO SPRINGS." Another very important group of ruins is located in the depression between the Mesa Verde and the Late Mountains, and near the divide |