While there is considerable literature on the cliff-dwellings of the Mesa Verde, individual ruins have not been exhaustively described. Much less has been published on Spruce-tree House than on Cliff Palace, which latter ruin, being the largest, has attracted more attention than any other in the Park. As every cliff-house has its peculiar architectural features it is well in describing these buildings to refer to the ruins by names. This individuality in architecture pertains likewise to specimens, the majority of which in museums unfortunately are labeled merely "Mancos" or "Mesa Verde." A large number of these objects probably came from Spruce-tree House and Cliff Palace, but it is now impossible to determine their exact derivation.
The first extended account of Cliff Palace, accompanied with illustrations, which is worthy of special mention, was published by Mr. F. H. Chapin, and so far as priority of publication is concerned he may be regarded as the first to make Cliff Palace known to the scientific world. Almost simultaneously with his article there appeared an account of the ruin by Doctor Birdsall, followed shortly by the superbly illustrated memoir of Baron Gustav Nordenskiöld. All these writers adopt the name Cliff Palace, which apparently was first given to the ruin by Richard Wetherill, one of the claimants for its discovery. Nordenskiöld's work contains practically all that was known about Cliff Palace up to the beginning of the summer's field work herein described.
Mr. Chapin[6] thus referred to Cliff Palace in a paper read before The Appalachian Mountain Club on February 13, 1890:
After a long ride we reached a camping-ground at the head of a branch of the left-hand fork of Cliff Cañon. Hurriedly unpacking, we hobbled the horses that were the most likely to stray far, and taking along our photographic kit, wended our way on foot toward that remarkable group of ruins of which I have already spoken, and which Richard has called "the Cliff-Palace." At about three o'clock we reached the brink of the cañon opposite the wonderful structure. Surely its discoverer had not overstated the beauty and magnitude of this strange ruin. There it was, occupying a great oval space under a grand cliff wonderful to behold, appearing like an immense ruined castle with dismantled towers. The stones in front were broken away, but behind them rose the walls of a second story; and in the rear of these, in under the dark cavern, stood the third tier of masonry. Still farther back in the gloomy recess, little houses rested on upper ledges. A short distance down the cañon are cosey buildings perched in utterly inaccessible nooks. The neighboring scenery is marvelous; the view down the cañon to the Mancos is alone worth the journey to see. We stopped to take a few views, and then commenced the descent into the gulf below. What would otherwise have been a hazardous proceeding, was rendered easy by using the steps which had been cut in the wall by the builders of the fortress. There are fifteen of these scouped-out hollows in the rock, which covered perhaps half of the distance down the precipice. At that point the cliff had probably fallen away; but luckily for our purpose, a dead tree leaned against the wall, and descending into its branches we reached the base of the parapet. In the bed of the cañon is a secondary gulch, which required care in descending. We hung a rope or lasso over some steep, smooth ledges, and let ourselves down by it. We left it hanging there and used it to ascend by on our return.
Nearer approach increased our interest in the marvel. From the south end of the ruin, which we first attained, trees hide the northern walls, yet the view is beautiful. We remained long, and ransacked the structure from one end to the other. According to Richard's measurements, the space covered by the building is 425 feet long, 80 feet high in front, and 80 feet deep in the centre. One hundred and twenty-four rooms have been traced on the ground floor, and a thousand people may have lived within its confines. So many walls have fallen that it is difficult to reconstruct the building in imagination; but the photographs show that there must have been many stories. There are towers and circular rooms, square and rectangular enclosures; yet all with a seeming symmetry, though in some places the walls look as if they were put up as additions in later periods. One of the towers is barrel-shaped; other circles are true. The diameter of one circular room, or estufa, is sixteen feet and six inches. There are six piers, which are well plastered. There are five recess-holes, which appear as if constructed for shelves. In several rooms we observed good fireplaces. In another room, where the outer walls have fallen away, we found that an attempt had been made at ornamentation: a broad band had been painted across the wall, and above it is a peculiar decoration which shows in one of our photographs. The lines are similar to embellishment on pottery which we found. We observed in one place corn-cobs imbedded in the plaster in the walls, showing that the cob is as old as that portion of the dwelling. The cobs, as well as kernels of corn which we found, are of small size, similar to what the Ute squaws raise now without irrigation. We found a large stone mortar, which may have been used to grind the corn. Broken pottery was everywhere; like specimens in the other cliff houses, it was similar in design to that which we picked up in the valley ruins near Wetherill's ranch, convincing us of the identity of the builders of the two classes of ruins. We also found parts of skulls and bones, fragments of weapons, and pieces of cloth. One nearly complete skeleton lies on a wall waiting for some future antiquarian. The burial-place of the clan was down under the rear of the cave.
| BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | BULLETIN 51 [PLATE 4] |
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| PHOTOGRAPHED BY F. K. VREELAND | |
| CENTRAL PART, BEFORE REPAIRING | |
Dr. W. R. Birdsall,[7] who in 1891 gave an account of the cliff-dwellings of the canyons of the Mesa Verde, which contains considerable information regarding these buildings, thus refers specially to Cliff Palace:
Richard Wetherill discovered an unusually large group of buildings which he named "The Cliff Palace," in which the ground plan showed more than one hundred compartments, covering an area over four hundred feet in length and eighty feet in depth in the wider portion. Usually the buildings are continuous where the configuration of the cliffs permitted such construction.