From this point the view swept westward over a wide extent of country in its general aspect a plane, but everywhere deeply cut by a tangled maze of canyons and thickly set with towers, castles, and spires of varied and striking forms; the most wonderful monuments of erosion which our eyes already experienced in objects of this kind had beheld. Near the mesa we are leaving stand detached portions of it of every possible form from broad, flat tables, to slender cones, crowned with pinnacles of the massive sandstone which forms the perpendicular faces of the walls of the Colorado. These castellated groups are from 1,000 to 5,000 feet in height, and no language is adequate to convey a just idea of the strange and impressive scenery formed by their grand and varied outlines. Their appearance was so strange and beautiful as to call out exclamations of delight from our party.
In this wild country up to his time rarely visited by white men, Prof. Newberry also graphically described ruins not greatly unlike some of those in Hill Canyon as follows:
Some two miles below the head of Labyrinth Canyon we came upon the ruins of a large number of houses of stone. Evidently built by the Pueblo Indians as they are similar to those on the Dolores, and the pottery scattered about is identical with that before found in so many places. It is very old but of excellent quality made of red clay coated with white and handsomely figured. Here the houses are built in sides of the cliffs. A mile or two below we saw others crowning the inaccessible summits, inaccessible except by ladders, of picturesque detached buttes of red sandstone, which rise to the height of 150 feet above the bottom of the canyon. Similar buildings were found lower down and broken pottery was picked up upon the summits of the cliffs overhanging Grand River. Evidence that these dreadful canyons were once the homes of families belonging to that great people who formerly spread over all this region now so utterly sterile, solitary and desolate.
Prof. Montgomery,[17] in an article on the ruins in Nine Mile Canyon, gives a description of similar prehistoric remains which he had found in that region. From this description the author of the present paper supposes that these ruins belong to the same type or one very similar to those found in Hill Canyon. The antiquities Montgomery mentions are well preserved, for he speaks of one of the towers in this region as about 50 feet high, standing in an almost inaccessible spot commanding a magnificent view of several canyons and mountains. He says:
On the top of a mesa in an extremely dizzy situation, were the remains of three small stone circular structures, two of which were provided with roofs of heavy cedar logs and heavy, flat stones. The logs and poles of these two structures would make about a cord of wood, and they possessed distinct marks of the rude stone axes with which they had been cut into suitable lengths. * * * On the south side of the canyon, and about a mile from Brock’s Postoffice, I explored a strong and well-built stone structure, which stood upon a high and precipitous cliff. It formed about the two-thirds of a circle, being 14 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 5½ feet high, and was completed by a cliff in its rear. * * * In a short time we came to the rock column, which, although hard and solid was much disintegrated and had been vertically cleft and separated, leaving a dangerous gap between its two inclined and overhanging portions. By the aid of cedar poles we succeeded in clambering to its summit, and there, in a situation that commanded a magnificent view of many canyons and hills, we found the ruin of four circular stone structures which, in my opinion had once been a look-out, and signal military station. They were arranged upon the flat top of the rock in such a manner that three smaller ones, each capable of holding but one man, occupied the front and most exposed places, one of them being in advance of the other two, which were nearer the sides of the rock. The fourth and largest stone structure held a place several yards in the rear of the three small ones, but from it a clear view of a wide and extended tract of country could also be obtained. They were all destitute of openings except at the top, and their walls sloped inward from below, so that the opening in each of the three small structures was small and only sufficient to allow the entrance or exit of one person.
The author’s attention was called to ruins in Hill Canyon like those above mentioned, by Mr. A. H. Kneale, agent of the Utes at Fort Duchesne, Utah, and at the close of work at Mesa Verde a trip was made into the region where they are found. The route was from Grand Junction, Colorado, to Mack, Utah, by rail, thence by rail to the end of the road at Watson. The trip from Watson to Ouray was by automobile. At Ouray the author outfitted with wagon, forded the Duchesne River, and crossed the Green River by ferry. Later he proceeded south to Squaw Crossing on Willow Creek, and thence to Taylor’s ranch, in the midst of the ruins of Hill Canyon.
The ruins mentioned below were visited, but many others were reported by cowboys which were not seen on account of limitation in time, the object of the visit being primarily a reconnoissance.
The following ruins were seen by the author and his companions during their short visit to this region:
1. Ruins A and B, on the canyon rim within sight of Taylor’s lower ranch.
2. Two ruins on pinnacles of rocks 1½ miles from Taylor’s lower ranch following the canyon southward.