American citizen., 1874-11-21
VOL. NNIV.

| were similar but rather ruder structures,
| on IA rocky bluff, but strongly We're
! they put together that the tooth of time
had found them hard gnawing; and in
one Instance, while thai portion of the
cliff upon which a certain house rested
had cracked oil and fallen away some
distance without rolling, the house itself
had remained solid and upright. Traces
of the trails to many of these dwellings
and the steps cut i'll the rock were still
visible, and were useful indications of
the proximity of buildings otherwise un-
| noticed.
We were now getting fairly away from
the mountains and approaching the great
sandy, alkaline plains of the San Juan
| River. Our valley of the Mancos was
gradually widening, but still on either
hand rose the perpendicular sides of the
mesa, composed of horizontal strata of
red and white sandstone, chiselcd by the
weather into rugged hedges and promi-
nences, indented by great bays or side
canons, and banked up at the foot by
| taluses of the gray mail which lay be
meath it. Imagine East River 1000 or
| 200 feet deep and drained dry. the piers
and slips on both sides made OF red sand
| stone and extending down to that depth,
and yourself at the bottom gazing up for
! human habitations far above you. In
such picture you would have Il tolera-
bic idea of this canon of the Rio Man
cos.
Keeping close under the mesa on the
western side-you never find houses on
the eastern cliff of Il canon, where the
morning sun, which they adored, could
not strike them full with its first beams
one of US espied what he thought to be
a house on the face of Il particularly high
and smooth portion of the precipice,
which there jutted out into promon-
tory, up the sides of which it seemed
possible to climb to the top of the mesa
above the house, whence it might be pos
sible to crawl down to it. Fired with
the hope OF finding some valuable relics
of household furniture in such a place,
the Captain and Bob started for the top
and disappeared behind the rocks while
we busted ourselves in getting ready the
Photographic apparatus. After while
an inarticulate sound tioated down to US,
| and looking up we beheld the Captain,
! diminished to the size of cricket, creep
| ing on hands and knees along what
seemed to us II perfectly smooth vertical
face of rock. He had got where he could
not retreat, and it seemed equally impos-
siblc to go ahead
| There was a moment of suspense; then
came a cry that stopped the beating of
our hearts rs we watched with bated
breath a dark object, not larger than Il
| cricket, whirling, spinning, dropping
through the awful space, growing larger
as it neared the earth, till it fell with
muff1ed thud on the cruel, sharp rocks be
low. But ere we could reach it another
object seemed to fall backward from the
highest point, and reeled down through
| the flooding sunshine, casting its flying
shadow on the brilliant bluff, gathering
dreadful momentum with which to dash
its poor self dead on the dentless stones
beneath
The Captain had thrown down his
boots.
lie was. still there, crawling carefully
along, clinging to the wall like lizard,
till finally broader ledge was reached !;
and having the nerve of an athlete he
got safely to the house. He found it
perfect, almost semi-circular in shape, of
the finest workmanship yet seen, all the
stones being cut true, foot wide, six
teen inches long and three inches thick
ground perfectly smooth on the inside
so as to require no plastering. 1t was
about twenty by six feet in interior di-
mensions and six feet high. The door
and window were bounded by lintels,
sills, and caps of single flat stones. Yet
all this was done, so far as we can learn,
with no other tools than those made of
stone; no implements of any kind were,
however, found here. Overhanging the
house and fully 800 feet from the ground
was Il thin projecting shelf of rock
Upon this bracket Bob was now to be
seen dancing about in very lively man
ner, and endeavoring to get below. 1t
would have somewhat damped his artlor
if he had known how thin IA stratum
held him from the voyage the Captains
boots had taken. AT any rate he turned
pale when he got down and saw where
he had unconsciously been.
Photographs and sketches completed,
we pushed on, rode twenty miles or
more, and camped just over the Utah
line, two miles beyond Aztec Springs,
which, for the first time in the Captains
experience, were dry. 1t was sore dis
appointment to US all. There were
about these springs, which are at the
base of the Ute Mountain, the natural
corner post of four Territories, formerly
many large buildings, the relics OF which
are very impressive. One of them is
200 feet square, with Il wall twenty feet
thick, and inclosed in the center "a circu-
lar building 100 feet in circumference. An
other near by was 100 feet square, with
equally thick walls, and was divided
north and south by Il very heavy parti
| ton. This building communicated with
the great stone reservoir about the
springs. These heavy walls were con
structed of outer strong walls of cut
sandstone regularly laid IN mortar, filled
in with firmly-packed fragments of stone
chiefly reddish fossiliferous limestone
containing profusion of beautiful fossil
shells-especially ammonites and baccul-
ties. Some portions of the walls still
stand twenty or thirty feet in height but
judging from the amount of material
thrown down, the building must origin
ally have been very lofty one. What
puzzled me was to place the entrance, or
to satisfy myself that there had been
any at all, on the ground floor. About
these large edifices were traces of small
er ones covering half "a square mile, and
out on the plain another small village,
indicated by IA collection of knolls
Scarcely anything now but white sage
grows thereabouts, but there is reason to
believe that in those old times it was un-
| der careful cultivation
Our next days march was westerly,
| leaving the mesa bluffs on our right
| gradually behind The road was an in
teresting one Intellectually, but not at
| all so ally-dry, hot, dusty, long
quite perfect houses, perched high up on
rocky bluffs, and many other remains.
| One, | remember, occupied the whole
/ apex of Il great conical bowlder as big as
1 two Dutch barns, that ages ago had be
come detached from its mother noun
| tain and rolled out into the valley
! Another worth mention was n round
/ tower, beautifully laid up, which sur
mounted an immense bOwldcr that had
| somehow rolled to the very verge of II
/ lofty cliff overlooking the whole valley.
! This was IA watch-tower, and we were
| told that almost all the hi iglI points were