Plan of the Ruins at Quemada.

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One of the roads, which turns at a right angle round the south-western slope, has traces of having been enclosed or raised by walls whose foundations yet remain; and from it at a point near the angle a raised causeway ninety-three feet wide extends straight up the slope north-eastward to the foot of the bluff. The walls supposed to have raised those south-western roads are not spoken of by Burkart or shown on his plan; Lyon speaks of certain walls here which he considers those of an enclosed area of some six acres. From a point near the junction of the road and causeway three raised roads, paved with rough stones extend, according to Lyon, in perfectly straight lines S.W., S.S.W., and S.W. by S. The first terminates in an artificial mound across the river towards the hacienda of Quemada;[X-32] the second extends four miles to the Coyote Rancho; and the third is said by the natives to terminate at a mountain six miles distant. Two similar roads thirteen or fourteen feet wide extend from the eastern slope of the hill, one of them crossing a stream and terminating at a distance of two miles in a cuicillo, or heap of stones. Burkart found some evidence that the heap constituted the ruins of a regular structure or pyramid; and Rivera locates the cuicillo on the summit of the Sierra de Palomas. He also speaks of a road running west from the north-western part of the hill to the small hills of San Juan, on the Zacatecas road. Of the other roads radiating from the hill I have no farther information than the fact that they are laid down in the plan.[X-33]

At all points in the whole circumference where the natural condition of the slope is not in itself a sufficient barrier to those seeking access to the summit plateau, the brow of the hill is guarded by walls of stone, marked B on the plan for the northern portions, and indicated generally by the black lines in the south. Indeed the northern end of the mesa, where the approach is somewhat less precipitous than elsewhere, is continuously guarded by such a wall, from nine to twelve feet thick and high, enclosing an irregular triangular area with sides of about four hundred and fifty yards: this area being divided by another wall into two unequal portions.

The most numerous and extensive ruins are on the southern portion of the hill, where a larger part of the uneven surface is formed into platforms or terraces by means of walls of solid masonry. One of these supporting walls is double—that is, composed of two walls placed in contact side by side, one having been completed and plastered before the other was begun, the whole structure being twenty-one feet high and of the same thickness.[X-34] On the platforms thus formed are a great number of edifices in different degrees of dilapidation. Any attempt on my part to describe these edifices in detail from the information afforded by the authorities available could not be otherwise than confusing and unsatisfactory. There is probably no ruin in our territory, the verbal description of which would present so great difficulties, even if the accounts of the original explorers were perfectly comprehensive, as they are not; for perhaps more than three fourths of the structures shown on the plan are not definitely spoken of by any author. I will, however, give as clear a description as possible, referring the reader to the plan and to one view which I shall copy, the only satisfactory one ever published.

Near each end of the wide causeway already mentioned are two comparatively small masses of ruins. One of them appears to have been a square stone building thirty-one feet square at the base and of the same height; the others, now completely in ruins, may perhaps have been of similar dimensions, so far as may be judged by the débris. In the centre of the causeway, perhaps at F of the plan, although described as nearer the bluff, is a heap of stone over a star-shaped border or pavement. On the lower part of the mesa, at the extreme southern end and also near the head of the causeway, at A iv of the plan, is a quadrangular space measuring two hundred by two hundred and forty feet,[X-35] and bounded, at least on the north and east, by a stone terrace or embankment four or five feet high and twenty feet wide, the width of which is probably to be included in the dimensions given.[X-36] Mr Burkart states that near the inner edge of this terrace is a canal a foot deep and wide, covered with stone flags. On the outer edge of the terrace, on the eastern side, stands a wall eight feet thick and eighteen feet high. Mr Lyon thinks the other sides were always open, but Burkart speaks of the wall as having originally enclosed the square, and having been torn down on three sides, which seems much more probable. At one point on the eastern terrace stands a round pillar nineteen feet in circumference and of the same height as the wall, or eighteen feet. There are visible traces of nine other similar pillars, seemingly indicating the former presence of a massive column-supported portico.

Adjoining this enclosure on the east, with only a narrow passage intervening, is another, R of the plan, measuring according to Burkart's measurement, which agrees very nearly with that of Berghes, one hundred by one hundred and thirty-eight feet,[X-37] with walls still perfect, eighteen feet high and eight feet thick, in connection with which no terraces are mentioned, although Rivera speaks of steps on the west. Within the walls, twenty-three feet from the sides and nineteen and a half from the ends, is a line of eleven pillars—Lyon says fourteen, and Rivera ten—each seventeen feet in circumference and of the same height as the walls. There can be little doubt that these columns once sustained a roof. Mr Berghes in one of his excavations in 1831 is said, by Nebel, to have found an ancient roof supported by a column, and showing exactly the method followed by the builders. The roof was made of large flat stones, covered with mortar and supported by beams. It is not quite clear how an excavation on the hill could show such a room, but there is little room to doubt that the roof-structure was similar to that described. Near this second enclosure—and west of it, as is said, but that would be hardly possible—Rivera speaks of a circular ruin sixteen and a half feet in diameter, with five steps leading up to the summit, on which some apartments were still traceable.

From the level platform in front of the two main structures described, a causeway, beginning with a stairway and guarded at the sides by walls for much of its length, leads northward up the slope. About three hundred yards in this direction, possibly at the point marked F on this causeway, is a pyramid in perfect preservation, about fifty feet square at the base, also fifty feet high, with a flat summit. Near this is another pyramid, only twelve feet square and eighteen feet high, but standing on a terrace fifty by one hundred feet. Two bowl-shaped circular pits, eight feet in diameter, with fragments of pottery and traces of fire; a square building ten by eight feet on the inside, with walls ten feet high; and a simple mound of stones eight feet high, are the miscellaneous remains noted in this part of the hill.

The most extensive and complicated ruins are found between the steep central height and the western brow of the hill, where there is a perpendicular descent of a hundred and fifty feet. On this central height itself there are no ruins, but passing nearly round its base are terraced roads twenty-five feet wide, with perpendicular walls only partially artificial. Of the extensive group of monuments on the platform of the south-western base of the central height, only the portion about A ii, of the plan, has been definitely described, and the description, although clear enough in itself, does not altogether agree with the plan. Here we have a square enclosure similar to the one already described in the south at A iv. Its sides are one hundred and fifty feet, bounded by a terrace three feet high and twelve feet wide, with steps in the centre of each side. Back of the terrace on the east, west, and south sides stand walls eight or nine feet in thickness and twenty feet high. The north side of the square is bounded by the steep side of the central cliff, in which steps or seats are cut in some parts in the solid rock, and in others built up with rough stones. In the centre of this side, and partially on the terrace, is a truncated pyramid, with a base of thirty-eight by thirty-five feet, and nineteen feet high, divided into several stories—five according to Nebel's drawing, seven according to Lyon's statement.[X-38]

In front of the pyramid, and nearly in the centre of the square, stands a kind of altar or small pyramid seven feet square and five feet high. A very clear idea of this square is given in the following cut from Nebel's drawing. It presents an interior view from a point on the southern terrace. The pyramid in five stories, the central altar, the eastern terrace with its steps, and standing portions of the walls are all clearly portrayed. The view, however, disagrees very essentially with the plan in representing extensive remains northward from the enclosure on the upper slope, where, according to Berghes' plan, no ruins exist. There is an entrance in the centre of the eastern wall, another in the western, and two on the south. These entrances do not seem to be in the form of doorways, but extend, according to the drawing, to the full height of the walls. That on the east is thirty feet wide and leads to an adjoining square with sides of two hundred feet and walls still perfect. The arrangement of these two adjoining squares is much like that of those at A iv in the south, but in the northern structures there are no pillars to be seen.