The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-03-15
GREAT RUINS IN NEW MEXICO
OfRoughIy Tewn Stone Ne ar Aztecin
San Juan County.


where the ancient dwellings are found
but in San Juan there exist wonderful
remains of the early dwellers About a
mile west of the county town of Aztec
on a mesa now under cultivation, are
found the fallen or partially standing
walls of a structure which presents fea-
lures of unusual interest. The mound
of debris which has been made from the
fallen walls in quite twenty-five feet
above the general level, and OUT of the
heap walls yet standing rise in their
original position to a further height of
thirty feet.
The lower rooms can now be reached
only through a passageway that has
been cut through the second story, and
can be examined only by the aid of ar
tifcial light They vary from six by
ten to ten by sixteen feet at the base
( and are ten feet in height. The ground
walls are three and one-half feet in
thickness, and the facings of all outer
and inner walls are made of dressed
stone of uniform thickness. While
shaped without the aid of metal tools,
they present very uniform appearance,
and the amount of labor required to
dress them with implements of stone at
test the skill and patience of the build
ers. The many thousands of tons of
rock were brought by human labor
from a quarry two miles distant. Some
attempt was made to break joints in
the different courses, and, doubtless for
artistic effect, alternate layers of stone,
not more than one inch in thickness,
were frequently used in the walls.
The builders evidently knew the use
of the plumb line, for the standing walls
are vertical but they were ignorant of
the principles of bonding at point of
wall intersections, for each cross wall is
built to, but not into, the wall it meets
at the true right angle. They evidently
were not familiar with the use of lime,
for all mortar was made from a deposit
of red clay, about one-half mile distant,
which contains large amount of py-
roxide of iron and minute infusoriae of
marine deposit, which furnishes a NOR
tar, when protected from the weather,
almost as hard as cement. In these dry
and now underground rooms this NOR
tar has become almost as hard as the
stone itself, but in the outer walls the
centuries of storms and sand-laden
winds have worn it away to a depth of
about two inches.
Passage to the several rooms was
made through doorways of uniform
width of three feet, varying from four
to five feet in height, and so far as
known all entrance was first made from
the court or .squadrangular area en-
braced within the outer walls. Light
and ventilation was secured to the outer
tier of rooms by openings, usually eight
by twelve inches in size, which are To-
Gated at a uniform distance of six feet
from the clay floors.
In all places where irregular joints
occur the mortar is filled with countless
numbers of flakes of stone perhaps not
more than one-eighth of an inch in
thickness. The mortar was placed with
the hand, as is apparent from the palm
and finger prints. All dividing walls
We're carried from the base through the
upper stories. thus making rooms in
tiers of uniform size. AS the several
stories, We're completed an offset of |
about four inches was made and from
the receding thickness of the three sto-
ries now standing the building was ev-
identity seven stories in height.
While many of the rooms bear no ev- !
idence of fire, others are blackened with
smoke, rand the fireplaces in the angles :
are connected with plastered flues that |
extend upright through the several sto-
ries.
A puzzung question arises as to how
or where they procured the logs that |
support the several floors. They resem-
BILE red spruce, but that is not now
found nearer than one hundred miles
~ isto int he hitrIe ptoip of bo
head of the Animas river, and, if pro- !
cured, could have been brought down |
only by being floated on that stream.
One log, which now in part supports the
floor of three rooms, is forty-two feet in
length, with a difference of but two
inches in diameter at either end.
Some years ago log was removed |
from the ruins that was sixty-four feet
in length, having a diameter of eight
and eleven inches at the extreme ends
No red spruce now growing in the for
est maintains it's size to this degree.
All supporting beams were cut in the
spring, for they are free from bark, and
bear no marks of tools except at the
ends, where with stone axes they We're i,
cut off as evenly as can be done with |
the modern steel axe. This may be
hard statement 10 DeleVe, out the logs
are here to speak for themselves, in the
absence of their former owners, and all
can see who will So enduring and
great is the strength of this timber that
now after centuries of use, where it has
been protected from moisture, it is ap-
as sound as when first cut, and
the two logs that span each room now
support deposit of from ten to fifteen
feet or rock and mortar that has fallen
from former walls. In other rooms
the open doorways can be seen
the broken and battered beams and
poles that have been crushed by the
great weight Of fallen debris, writes
Cecil A. Deane.
All right angles to the beams is laid
a tier of small poles about three inches
in diameter, and free from bark. On
these is layer of cedar splints, and
above them a layer Of cedar bark,
which in turn is covered with deposit
of clay mortar about four inches in
thickness, which forms the floor proper.
About fifty rooms in the lower and
now underground story have been
opened The number so far as investi-
cations have been made indicate a to-
tai of about one hundred rooms or sew
EN- hundred in the building before its