The bottom lands of the Rio Verde in the vicinity of Verde have been already described, and the cavate lodges in question occur just below the southern end of this large area of tillable land, and some of them overlook it. The river at this point flows southward, and extending toward the east are two little canyons which meet on its bank. North and south of the mouth of the canyons the bank of the river is formed by an inaccessible bluff 180 or 200 feet high. These bluffs are washed by the Verde during high water, though there is evidence that up to a recent time there was a considerable area of bottom land between the river and the foot of the bluff. Plate XXIV shows the northern end of the group from a low mesa on the opposite side of the river; the eastern bank of the river can be seen in the foreground, while the sandy area extending to the foot of the bluff is the present high-water channel of the Verde. The map (plate XXV) shows the distribution of the cavate lodges composing the group, and plate XXVI shows the character of the site. The cavate lodges occur on two distinct levels--the first, which comprises nearly all the cavate lodges, is at the top of the slopes of talus and about 75 feet above the river; the second is set back from 80 to 150 feet from the first tier horizontally and 30 or 40 feet above it. The cavate lodges occur only in the face of the bluff along the river and in the lower parts of the two little canyons before mentioned. These canyons run back into the mesa seen in the illustration, which in turn forms part of the foothills rising into the range of mountains hemming in the Rio Verde on the east. [Illustration: Figure 289. Diagram showing strata of canyon wall.] The walls of the canyon in the cavate-lodge area are composed of three distinct strata, clearly defined and well marked. The relations of the strata, at points on the northern and western sides of the north canyon, are shown in figure 289 and plate XXVI. The lowest stratum shown in the figure is that in which almost all the cavate lodges occur. It is about 8 feet thick and composed of a soft, very friable, purple-gray sandstone. Above it lies a greenish-white bed a few inches thick, followed by a stratum of a pronounced white, about 12 feet thick. This heavy stratum is composed of calcareous clay, and the green bed of a calcareous clay with a mixture of sand. The white stratum is divided at two-thirds its height by a thin belt of greenish-white rock, and above it there is another belt of purple-gray sandstone about 12 feet thick. The top of this sandstone forms the ground surface south of the point shown in the diagram, while on the north and east it forms the floor of the upper tier of cavate lodges. [Illustration: Plate XXVII. RUIN ON NORTHERN POINT OF CAVATE LODGE CANYON.]