Watch-Tower—Mancos Cañon.
At the outlet of the cañon the river turns westward, flowing for a time nearly parallel with the San Juan, which it joins very nearly at the corner of the four territories. Many groups of walls and heaps were visible in the distance down the valley, but the explorers left the river at this point and bore away to the right along the foot of the mesa until they reached Aztec Spring, very near the boundary line. "Immediately adjoining the spring, on the right, as we face it from below, is the ruin of a great massive structure of some kind, about one hundred feet square in exterior dimensions; a portion only of the wall upon the northern face remaining in its original position. The débris of the ruin now forms a great mound of crumbling rock, from twelve to twenty feet in height, overgrown with artimisia, but showing clearly, however, its rectangular structure, adjusted approximately to the four points of the compass. Inside this square was a circle, about sixty feet in diameter, deeply depressed in the centre, and walled. The space between the square and the circle appeared, upon a hasty examination, to have been filled in solidly with a sort of rubble-masonry. Cross-walls were noticed in two places; but whether they were to strengthen the walls or had divided apartments could only be conjectured. That portion of the outer wall remaining standing was some forty feet in length and fifteen in height. The stones were dressed to a uniform size and finish. Upon the same level as this ruin, and extending back, I should think, half a mile, were grouped line after line of foundations and mounds, the great mass of which was of stone, but not one remaining upon another. All the subdivisions were plainly marked, so that one might, with a little care, count every room or building in the settlement. Below the above group, some two hundred yards distant, and communicating by indistinct lines of débris, was another great wall, inclosing a space of about two hundred feet square. Only a small portion was well enough preserved to enable us to judge, with any accuracy, as to its character and dimensions; the greater portion consisting of large ridges flattened down so much as to measure some thirty or more feet across the base, and five or six feet in height. This better preserved portion was some fifty feet in length, seven or eight feet in height, and twenty feet thick, the two exterior surfaces of well-dressed and evenly-laid courses, and the centre packed in solidly with rubble-masonry, looking entirely different from those rooms which had been filled with débris, though it is difficult to assign any reason for its being so massively constructed. It was only a portion of a system extending half a mile out into the plains, of much less importance, however, and now only indistinguishable mounds. The town built about this spring was nearly a square mile in extent, the larger and more enduring buildings in the centre, while all about were scattered and grouped the remnants of smaller structures, comprising the suburbs."
CAÑON OF THE McELMO.
Tower on the McElmo, Colorado.
Round Tower on the McElmo.
Four miles from the spring is the McElmo, a small stream, dry during a greater part of the year. At the point where the party struck this stream, portions of walls, and heaps of débris in rectangular order were scattered in every direction; among which two round towers were noticed, one of them with double walls, like that on the Mancos, but larger, being fifty feet in diameter. Following down the McElmo cañon aboriginal vestiges continue abundant, including cliff-dwellings like those that have been described, but only forty or fifty feet above the valley, and also the square tower shown in first cut. It stands on a square detached block of sandstone forty feet in height. The walls of this building were still fifteen feet high in some places, and there were also traces of walls about the base of the rock. Another double-walled round tower fifty feet in diameter found near the one last named is shown in the second cut.
