We are more interested, however, in ruins testifying to past greatness. “Six miles up the river you come to the union of two cañons—the Guadalupe and San Diego. Where the mesa between these cañons narrows itself to a point, are the ruins of two pueblos, one upon the lower prominence of the mesa, the other upon the mesa proper, and only approachable by two narrow, steep trails, the mesa everywhere else being nearly perpendicular, and seven hundred and fifty feet high. The view from the mesa is picturesque and imposing in the extreme. Far beneath, to the right and left, a stream makes its way between the colossal walls of the sandstone upon the narrow width of the mesa; near frightful precipices are the ruins of a town of eighty houses, partly in parallel rows, partly in squares, and partly perched between overhanging rocks, the rim and surfaces of which formed the walls of rooms, the gaps and interstices being filled in artificially.” “Nearly every house had one story and two rooms. The building material was trachytic rock as found upon the mesa. Broken pottery, charred corn, and millstones for grinding corn, were found in some of the rooms. The roofs had all fallen in, and so also had many of the side walls, in the construction of which wood was but little used. Piñon trees have taken root within many of the former rooms. Upon asking my Indian guide whether the former inhabitants of this town were obliged to descend the steep and dangerous pathway every day to the creek to procure water, he replied there were cisterns upon the mesa, in which rain, formerly plentiful, was caught. He then called my attention to some conical heaps of stones along the rim of the precipice which was the material for defense.”12 This description introduces us to another class of ruins—that is, detached separate houses, different from the great communal structures we have already described. What connection exists between these two forms of houses will be studied in another place. As a rule, the rooms in the detached houses are larger than in the communal houses. Exceptions occur in some of the inhabited pueblos.13 This is only one of many towns in ruins thereabouts. According to Dr. Loew there are no less than twenty-five or thirty.