ies Found in Caves--More Trincheras--Our
Excavations in Caves and Mounds Confirm to the Mormons their
Sacred Stories--We Move to the Plains of San Diego--Visit to Casas
Grandes and the Watch-tower--Successful Excavations of the Mounds
near San Diego.

Finding the locality so inviting for research, I decided to remain
here, returning to Pacheco only to despatch the rest of my party to
make excavations at the ranch of San Diego, thirty miles to the east,
down on the plains of Chihuahua. The ranch was temporarily leased
by an American, Mr. Galvin, who received my expedition hospitably,
and invited the members to remain as long as they pleased and to make
excavations wherever they wanted.

Cave Valley is the widening of a long, low-walled canon through which
the Piedras Verdes River flows. As its name implies, it contains
many caves in the felsitic conglomerate overlying the region. It is
from one-quarter to half a mile wide, and has a fine, rich, loamy
soil. The stream is ten to twenty feet wide and from one to three
feet deep. Fine forests of pine, oak, cedar, and maple surround it,
and make it an ideal dwelling-place for a peaceful, primitive people.

The little knoll on which we were encamped rises on the north side
of a brook which empties itself in the river. It was in equally close
proximity to the dwellings of the living and the dwellings of the dead.

Up the main stream, on the western wall of the canon, and about
a mile from our camp, is a large cave containing the curious
cupola-shaped structure already mentioned. The cave is easy of
approach up a sloping bank from its south side, and arriving at it
we found it quite commodious and snug. It is about eighty feet wide
at its mouth, and about a hundred feet deep. In the central part it
is almost eighteen feet high, but the roof gradually slopes down in
the rear to half that height.

A little village, or cluster of houses, lies at its back and sides. The
interior of most of the rooms must have been quite dark, though the
light reaches the outside of all the houses. The walls are still
standing about six feet high. The compartments, though small, are
seldom kennel-like. Some of the houses have shallow cellars. The roof
of the cave was thickly smoked over its entire surface. From traces
of walls still remaining on it, we may infer that a second story
had been built toward the centre of the cave, though this could only
have been five feet high. T