of which the contents seem to have been originally removed, leaving a
semicircle of vertical bluffs of clay and drift about 3 m.--10
ft.--high. It is out of this locality that I suggested the clay for the
adobe of the church might have been secured. The faces of the slope
cannot have been washed out, for the creek runs straight far to the
east, hugging closely that side of its banks; there is no trace of an
old stream-bed winding to the westward, neither is there any sufficient
drainage from the west in the shape of gulches or branches. It appears
as if there had been an original start, at least, given to the present
basin by a removal of earth in a curve, subsequent wearing and weakening
enlarging the cauldron to its actual form and size. This size is
constantly increased by decay and by the work of diggers; for this bluff
has been of late a favorite resort for them, from the fact that in its
face human bones--nay, complete graves--have been found.

I consequently started to examine the bluff, and finally noticed a plain
wall jutting out at about one fourth of the length of the western curve
from N. to S. This wall seemed at first to be a corner. It is well made,
and its stone-work is much like that figured by Mr. Holmes from the
cliff-dwellings on the Rio Mancos in South-western Colorado. Still the
stones are not hewn, but only were carefully broken, the rock itself
having a tabular cleavage. The surface is true. I am unable to say
whether it was a corner or not; the thickness of the side (east) is 0.65
m.--2 ft.,--and it looks like a strong outside line running almost due
N. and S., perhaps a little to the E.

The height of the wall is 0.94 m.--3 ft.; its depth beneath the surface,
0.52 m.--21 in. The sod (covered with grama) looks undisturbed; it is
hard and coarsely sandy on the top, but beneath the clay is softer and
loamy. Under the wall there is red clay to the bottom of the bluff with
bands of drift. Clambering along the cliff to the northward, I soon
perceived, at a depth nearly agreeing with the base of the wall, a layer
of white ashes, similar to those found over the hearthstone in building
_B_, mixed with charcoal and charred pottery. This layer was continuous
along the exposure of the bluff; it formed a regular seam, intersected
horizontally by bands of charcoal, and, at the lower end, a continuous
stratum of pottery totally different from that found hitherto, except
one fragment in the drift of the creek