grass were spread. The prints of the light poles can still be seen on the walls. The floor or roof was then finished with a heavy coating of clay, trodden down solid and smoothed to a level. A number of blocks of this final floor finish, bearing the impress of the grass and reeds, were found in the middle room. There is usually a setback in the wall at the floor level, but this practice was not followed in all the rooms.

The position of the floor is well marked in all cases by holes in the wall, into which beams projected sometimes to a depth of 3 feet, and by a peculiar roughness of the wall. Plate LVI shows two floor levels, both set back slightly and the upper one strongly marked by the roughness mentioned. This roughness apparently marks the thickness of the floor in some cases, yet in others it is much too thick for a floor and must have had some other purpose. The relation of these marks to the beam holes suggests that in some cases there was a low and probably narrow bench around two or more sides of the room; such benches are often found in the present Pueblo villages.

The walls of the northern room are fairly well preserved, except in the northeastern corner, which has fallen. The principal floor beams were of necessity laid north and south, across the shorter axis of the room, while the secondary series of poles, 1½ inches in diameter, have left their impression in the eastern and western walls. There is no setback in the northern wall at the first floor level, though there is a very slight one in the southern wall; none appears in the eastern and western walls. Yet in the second roof level there is a double setback of 9 and 5 inches in the western wall, and the northern wall has a setback of 9 inches, and the top of the wall still shows the position of nearly all the roof timbers. This suggests—and the suggestion is supported by other facts to be mentioned later—that the northern room was added after the completion of the rest of the edifice.

The second roof or third floor level, the present top of the wall, has a decided pitch outward, amounting to nearly 5 inches. Furthermore, the outside of the northern wall of the middle room, above the second roof level of the northern room, is very much eroded. This indicates that the northern room never had a greater height than two stories, but probably the walls were crowned with low parapets. In this connection it may be stated that a calculation of the amount of débris within the building and for a distance of 10 feet about it in every direction, the interior floor level being determined by excavation, showed an amount of material which, added to the walls, would raise them less than 3 feet; in other words, the present height of the walls is very nearly the maximum height.

Subsequent to this examination the ruin was cleared out by contractors for the Government in carrying out a plan for the repair and preservation of the ruin, and it was reported that in one of the rooms a floor level below that previously determined was found, making an underground story or cellar. This would but slightly modify the foregoing conclusion, as the additional débris would raise the walls less than a foot, and in the calculation no account was taken of material removed from the surface of the walls.

In support of the hypothesis that the second roof level of the northern room was the top roof, it may be stated that there is no trace of an opening in the walls above that level, except on the western side. There was a narrow opening in the western corner, but so well filled that it is hardly perceptible. Doubtless it formed a niche or opening in the parapet.

The southern wall on the first roof level still preserves very clear and distinct impressions of the rushes which were used in the construction of the roof. In some cases these impressions occur 3 inches above the top of the floor beams, in others directly above them, showing that the secondary series of poles was very irregularly placed. In the eastern and western walls the impressions of rushes are also clear, but there they are parallel with the wall surface. The rushes were about the thickness of a pencil.

The floor joists were 3 to 4 inches in diameter, and as a rule projected into the wall but 5 to 8 inches. In some places in the northern wall, however, they extended into the masonry as much as 3 feet 3 inches. The beams were doubtless cut by guess, at the place where trees of the requisite size were found, according to the method employed by the Pueblo Indians today, and if, as supposed, the northern room was built after the rest of the structure, the excess in length would necessarily be found in the northern wall.

In the roof construction previously described rushes or canes formed the third member, and in the northern room the wall is rough immediately above the impressions of rushes, and projects 8 to 12 inches. This feature is well marked; it may be a remnant of the clay covering of floor or roof, but it is almost too thick for that and possibly marks the position of a low bench, as previously suggested. The bottoms of the openings come just to or a trifle above the top of this marking.

PLATE LVII

BLOCKED OPENING IN WEST WALL

The walls of the western room were smoothly finished and the finish is well preserved, but here, as in the northern room, the exterior wall of the middle room was not finished above the second roof level, and there is no doubt that two stories above the ground were the maximum height of the western rooms, excluding the parapet. The eastern wall presents a marked double convexity while the western wall is comparatively straight in a horizontal line, but markedly concave vertically above the first roof level. Below this level it is straight. The floor beams were from 3 to 6 inches in diameter. The marks in the eastern wall show that the beams projected into it to a nearly uniform depth of 1 foot 4 inches. In the western wall, however, the depth varies from 1 to 3 feet. The beams which entered the eastern wall were very irregularly placed, the line rising in the center some 3 or 4 inches. The beams of the second roof level show the same irregularity and in the same place; possibly this was done to correct a level, for the same feature is repeated in the eastern room.

The walls of the southern room are perhaps better finished and less well constructed than any others in the building. The beam holes in the southern wall are regular, those in the northern wall less so. The beams used averaged a little smaller than those in the other rooms, and there is no trace whatever in the overhanging wall of the use of rushes or canes in the construction of the roof above. The walls depart considerably from vertical plane surfaces; the southern wall inclines fully 12 inches inward, while in the northeastern corner the side of a doorway projects fully 3 inches into the room. The broken condition of the southern wall indicates carelessness in construction. The weakest point in pisé construction is of course the framing around openings. In the southern wall the openings, being doubtless the first to give way, are now almost completely obliterated. In the center of the wall there were two openings, one above the other, but not a trace of lintels now remains, and the eastern half of the wall now stands clear from other walls. Probably there was also an opening near the southwestern corner of the room, but the lintels giving way the wall above fell down and, as shown on the ground plan (plate LII), filled up the opening. This could happen only