The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona | Page 4

and on
each trip additional material was obtained. In 1890 Mr F. T. Bickford[5]
published an account of a visit to the canyon, illustrated with a series of
woodcuts made from the photographs of the Bureau. The illustrations
are excellent and the text is pleasantly written, but the descriptions of
ruins are too general to be of much value to the student.
[Footnote 4: Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., 1886, No. 4; Ancient Habitations of
the Southwest, by James Stevenson.]
[Footnote 5: Century Magazine, October, 1890, vol. XL, No. 6, p. 806
et seq.]
In recent years several publications have appeared which, while not
bearing directly on the De Chelly ruins, are of great interest, as they
treat of analogous remains--the cliff ruins of the Mancos canyon and
the Mesa Verde. These ruins were discovered in 1874 by W. H.
Jackson and were visited and described in 1875 by W. H. Holmes,[6]
both of the Hayden Survey. This region was roamed over by bands of
renegade Ute and Navaho, who were constantly making trouble, and
for fifteen years was apparently not visited by whites. Recent

exploration appears to have been inaugurated by Mr F. H. Chapin, who
spent two summers in the Mesa Verde country. Subsequently he
published the results of some of his observations in a handsome little
volume.[7] In 1891 Dr W. R. Birdsall made a flying trip to this region
and published an account[8] of the ruins he saw the same year. At the
time of this visit a more elaborate exploration was being carried on by
the late G. Nordenskiöld, who made some excavations and obtained
much valuable data which formed the basis of a book published in
1893.[9] This is the most important treatise on the cliff ruins that has
ever been published, and the illustrations can only be characterized as
magnificent. All of these works, and especially the last named, are of
great value to the student of the cliff ruins wherever located, or of
pueblo architecture.
[Footnote 6: U.S. Geol. Survey, F. V. Hayden in charge; 10th Ann.
Rept. (for 1876), Washington, 1878.]
[Footnote 7: The Land of the Cliff Dwellers, by Frederick H. Chapin;
Boston, 1892.]
[Footnote 8: Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., vol. XXIII, No. 4, 1891; The Cliff
Dwellings of the Cañons of the Mesa Verde.]
[Footnote 9: The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, by
G. Nordenskiöld; Stockholm and Chicago, 1894.]
GEOGRAPHY
The ancient pueblo culture was so intimately connected with and
dependent on the character of the country where its remains are found
that some idea of this country is necessary to understand it. The limits
of the region are closely coincident with the boundaries of the plateau
country except on the south, so much so that a map of the latter,[10]
slightly extended around its margin, will serve to show the former. The
area of the ancient pueblo region may be 150,000 square miles; that of
the plateau country, approximately, 130,000.
[Footnote 10: See Major C. E. Dutton's map of the plateau country in

6th Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. Survey, pl. xi. His report on "Mount Taylor
and the Zuñi plateau," of which this map is a part, presents a vivid
picture of the plateau country, and his descriptions are so clear and
expressive that any attempt to better them must result in failure. The
statement of the geologic and topographic features which is
incorporated herein is derived directly from Major Dutton's description,
much of it being taken bodily.]
The plateau country is not a smooth and level region, as its name might
imply; it is extremely rugged, and the topographic obstacles to travel
are greater than in many wild mountain regions. It is a country of cliffs
and canyons, often of considerable magnitude and forming a bar to
extended progress in any direction. The surface is generally smooth or
slightly undulating and apparently level, but it is composed of a series
of platforms or mesas, which are seldom of great extent and generally
terminate at the brink of a wall, often of huge dimensions. There are
mesas everywhere; it is the mesa country.
Although the strata appear to be horizontal, they are slightly tilted. The
inclination, although slight, is remarkably persistent, and the thickness
of the strata remains almost constant. The beds, therefore, extend from
very high altitudes to very low ones, and often the formation which is
exposed to view at the summit of an incline is lost to view after a few
miles, being covered by some later formation, which in turn is covered
by a still later one. Each formation thus appears as a terrace, bounded
on one side by a descending cliff carved out of the edges of its own
strata and on the other by an ascending cliff carved out of the strata
which overlie