To the northwest of the ruins, less than 2 miles away, the Indians found an outcropping of sandstone which could be broken into shape and then ground into rectangular blocks. These were hauled to the proposed building site, where the women took over the construction. Holes were dug in the clay soil nearby, water poured into them, and then stirred to produce a thick adobe mud. This was used, along with crude unshaped sandstone blocks, as filler for the walls. On the outside, the women laid up the well-shaped blocks in regular courses, chinking them with small spalls or potsherds. The rooms were laid out in rows adjoining one another; as one row was finished, another was added alongside of it. When several rows had been completed, second and possibly even third stories were added. The first group to arrive probably completed the major part of one wing; later groups added to this and erected the other wings and associated kivas until the entire pueblo had the traditional planned aspect of a typical plaza-enclosed Chaco pueblo. In the central plaza area several kivas were dug and roofed over at ground level. The fourth side consisted of a single row of one-storied rooms. Finally, even a fourth story may have been added in places. Sometimes a large square space was temporarily left open, later to be filled by a circular kiva. Out in the plaza, during the latter part of this first occupation, work started on the Great Kiva, for this was the center of the ceremonial life of the entire pueblo. Here would be performed the ceremonies which would insure the inhabitants that theirs would be a long and happy life and that everything would prosper for the new community. For roofing the rooms, main stringers of pine or juniper were used, and over these were laid splits of juniper or long poles of cottonwood. Next came a layer of rush or reed mattings and then a layer of dirt and adobe which formed the top of the roof, or the floor of the room above if there was more than one story. The pine logs used for the main stringers are good-sized, many being 1 foot to 1½ feet in diameter and up to 10 or 12 feet long. Although juniper is still fairly abundant in the nearby country, good stands of pine today are many miles away. At the time the first parts of this pueblo were constructed, the pine forest may have been much closer. Perhaps extensive cutting hastened soil erosion and thus caused the forest growth to retreat. Prehistorically it still was a long haul to bring in such big logs. Many people have assumed that the logs were floated down the Animas River. This would have been the easy way of doing it, but the logs found _in situ_ in the ruins were obviously fresh cut, peeled while green, and show no scars. They must therefore have been carried overland from their source, no matter how far away, for it would have been impossible to float them downstream without being scarred and bruised in transit.