The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona | Page 7

mile or two long.
Outside of De Chelly, and independent of it, there is a little canyon
about 4 miles long, called Tse-on-i-tso-si by the Navaho. At one point
near its head it approaches so near to De Chelly that but a few feet of
rock separate them.
On the western side of the mountains there are a number of small
perennial streams fed by springs on the upper slopes. Several of these
meet in the upper part of De Chelly, others in Del Muerto, and in the

upper parts of these canyons there is generally water. But, except at the
time of the autumn and winter rains and in the spring when the
mountain snows are melting, the streams are not powerful enough to
carry the water to the mouth of the canyon. The flow is absorbed by the
deep sand which forms the stream bed. Ordinarily it is difficult to
procure enough water to drink less than 8 or 10 miles from the mouth
of De Chelly, but occasionally the whole stream bed, at places over a
quarter of a mile wide, is occupied by a raging torrent impassable to
man or beast. Such ebullitions, however, seldom last more than a few
hours. Usually water can be obtained anywhere in the bottom by
sinking a shallow well in the sand, and it is by this method that the
Navaho, the present occupants of the canyon, obtain their supply.
The walls of the canyon are composed of brilliant red sandstone,
discolored everywhere by long streaks of black and gray coming from
above. At its mouth it is about 500 feet wide. Higher up the walls
sometimes approach to 300 feet of each other, elsewhere broadening
out to half a mile or more; but everywhere the wall line is tortuous and
crooked in the extreme, and, while the general direction of De Chelly is
east and west, the traveler on the trail which runs through it is as often
headed north or south. Del Muerto is even more tortuous than De
Chelly, and in places it is so narrow that one could almost throw a
stone across it.
At its mouth the walls of Canyon de Chelly are but 20 to 30 feet high,
descending vertically to a wide bed of loose white sand, and absolutely
free from talus or débris. Three miles above Del Muerto comes in, but
its mouth is so narrow it appears like an alcove and might easily be
overlooked. Here the walls are over 200 feet high, but the rise is so
gradual that it is impossible to appreciate its amount. At the point
where Monument canyon comes in, 13 miles above the mouth of De
Chelly, the walls reach a height of over 800 feet, about one-third of
which consists of talus.
The rise in the height of the walls is so gradual that when the canyon is
entered at its mouth the mental scale by which we estimate distances
and magnitudes is lost and the wildest conjectures result. We fail at

first to realize the stupendous scale on which the work was done, and
when we do finally realize it we swing to the opposite side and
exaggerate. At the junction of Monument canyon there is a beautiful
rock pinnacle or needle standing out clear from the cliff and not more
than 165 feet on the ground. It has been named, in conjunction with a
somewhat similar pinnacle on the other side of the canyon, "The
Captains," and its height has been variously estimated at from 1,200 to
2,500 feet. It is less than 800. A curious illustration of the effects of the
scenery in connection with this pinnacle may not be amiss. The author
of Western Wilds (Cincinnati, 1878) thus describes it:
But the most remarkable and unaccountable feature of the locality is
where the canyons meet. There stands out 100 feet from the point,
entirely isolated, a vast leaning rock tower at least 1,200 feet high and
not over 200 thick at the base, as if it had originally been the sharp
termination of the cliff and been broken off and shoved farther out. It
almost seems that one must be mistaken; that it must have some
connection with the cliff, until one goes around it and finds it 100 feet
or more from the former. It leans at an angle from the perpendicular of
at least 15 degrees; and lying down at the base on the under side, by the
best sighting I could make, it seemed to me that the opposite upper
edge was directly over me--that is to say, mechanically speaking, its
center of gravity barely falls with the base, and a heave of only a yard
or two more would cause it to topple over. (Page 257.)
The dimensions