When it had been decided to commence the preparation of a report on the field work of the division, in the hope of its early publication, Mr. Middleton was called to the office to assist in that preparation, where he remained, preparing maps and plats and making a catalogue of the collections, until the latter part of April, 1886, when he again entered upon field work in the southern part of Illinois, among the graves of that neighborhood.
Mr. Rogan was in charge of the office work from the 1st of July until the latter part of August, during which time Prof. Thomas was in the field, as before mentioned. He was engaged during the remainder of the year in exploring the mounds of northern Georgia and east Tennessee.
Rev. S. D. Peet was employed for a few months in preparing a preliminary map showing the localities of the antiquarian remains of Wisconsin and the areas formerly occupied by the several Indian tribes which are known to have inhabited that region. In addition he prepared for use in the report notes on the distribution and character of the mounds and other ancient works of Wisconsin.
Mr. Smith was engaged during the month of June, 1886, in exploring mounds and investigating the ancient works in southwestern Pennsylvania; and Mr. Reynolds, during the same time, in tracing and exploring the monumental remains of western New York.
Notwithstanding the details necessary for office work in the preparation of maps and plats for the report, and cataloguing the collection, the amount of field work accomplished was equal to that done in previous years. Although, as before stated, one of the assistants, Mr. Middleton, was chiefly engaged, while in the field, in surveying, about 3,500 specimens were collected and a large number of drawings obtained illustrating the different modes of construction of the mounds.
[ EXPLORATIONS IN STONE VILLAGES.]
[ WORK OF DIRECTOR J. W. POWELL.]
During the summer of 1885 the Director, accompanied by Mr. James Stevenson, revisited portions of Arizona and New Mexico in which many structures are found which have greatly interested travelers and anthropologists, and about which various theories have grown. The results of the investigation have been so much more distinct and comprehensive than any before obtained that they require to be reported with some detail.
On the plain to the west of the Little Colorado River and north of the San Francisco Mountain there are many scattered ruins, usually having one, two, or three rooms each, all of which are built of basaltic cinders and blocks. Through the plain a valley runs to the north, and then east to the Little Colorado. Down the midst of the valley there is a wash, through which, in seasons of great rainfall, a stream courses. Along this stream there are extensive ruins built of sandstone and limestone. At one place a village site was discovered, in which several hundred people once found shelter. To the north of this and about twenty-five miles from the summit of San Francisco Peak there is a volcanic cone of cinder and basalt. This small cone had been used as the site of a village, a pueblo having been built around the crater. The materials of construction were derived from a great sandstone quarry near by, and the pit from which they were taken was many feet in depth and extended over two or three acres of ground. The cone rises on the west in a precipitous cliff from the valley of an intermittent creek. The pueblo was built on that side at the summit of the cliff, and extending on the north and south sides along the summit of steep slopes, was inclosed on the east, so that the plaza was entered by a covered way. The court, or plaza, was about one-third of an acre in area. The little pueblo contained perhaps sixty or seventy rooms. Southward of San Francisco Mountain many other ruins were found.
East of the San Francisco Peak, at a distance of about twelve miles, another cinder cone was found. Here the cinders are soft and friable, and the cone is a prettily shaped dome. On the southern slope there are excavations into the indurated and coherent cinder mass, constituting chambers, often ten or twelve feet in diameter and six to ten feet in height. The chambers are of irregular shape, and occasionally a larger central chamber forms a kind of vestibule to several smaller ones gathered about it. The smaller chambers are sometimes at the same altitude as the central or principal one, and sometimes at a lower altitude. About one hundred and fifty of these chambers have been excavated. Most of them are now partly filled by the caving in of the walls and ceilings, but some of them are yet in a good state of preservation. In these chambers, and about them on the summit and sides of the cinder cone, many stone implements were found, especially metates. Some bone implements also were discovered. At the very summit of the little cone there is a plaza, inclosed by a rude wall made of volcanic cinders, the floor of which was carefully leveled. The plaza is about forty-five by seventy-five feet in area. Here the people lived in underground houses—chambers hewn from the friable volcanic cinders. Before them, to the south, west, and north, stretched beautiful valleys, beyond which volcanic cones are seen rising amid pine forests. The people probably cultivated patches of ground in the low valleys.