Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/209

 30] is a section through a restoration of the pueblo from north to south, showing the manner in which the stories were probably terraced from the interior of the court outward. There is no positive evidence in any of these ruins that they were thus built, but this arrangement naturally suggests itself as being the only way in which light and ease of access to the inner rooms could be readily obtained. It is also quite certain from the character of the standing walls that they were not terraced symmetrically but irregularly, after the manner of the present pueblos. There is every reason to believe that the first story was, in every case, reached from the outside by ladders, the succeeding stories being also approached from the outside, either by ladders or by stone stairways, after the manner of the Moqui pueblos. There is no positive evidence to sustain any conjecture upon this point, as in every ruin the upper stories are so entirely dismantled that no indications of any sort of stairway have ever been found. The ground-floor was divided into smaller apartments than the second floor, many of the rooms, as shown in the plan, being in the lower story divided into two or three. It would be impossible to say how high this story had been, as the floor is covered to a considerable extent with stones from the fallen walls. The second floor was ten feet between joists, and the third somewhat less, about seven feet, as near as we could judge from below. It is probable that there was a fourth story, but there is now very little evidence of it: Not a vestige of the vigas or other floor-timbers now remain. Some of the lintels over the doors or windows, composed of sticks of wood from one to two inches in thickness, laid close together, are now in fair preservation."

Twelve miles down the cañon from the Pueblo Pintado, are the ruins of the Pueblo Wegé-gi, Fig. 30. The main building is two hundred and twenty-four feet, and the length of each wing is one hundred and twenty feet, measured on the outside, but which would include the depth of the main building. It is remarkably symmetrical. The rooms, Mr. Jackson says, are small, the largest being eight by fourteen feet, and the smallest eight feet square, and the estufas are each thirty feet in diameter. It is built like the last pueblo "of small tabular pieces of sandstone, arranged with beautiful effect of regularity and finish."