this place--and Casa Grande was then a ruin--there has been but little
destruction from the elements, the damage done by relic hunters during
the last twenty years being, in fact, much greater than that due to all
causes in the preceding two centuries.

The building was well provided with doorways and other openings,
arranged in pairs, one above the other. There were doorways from each
room into every adjoining room, except that the rooms of the middle tier
were entered only from the east. Some of the openings were not used, and
were closed with blocks of solid masonry, built into them long prior to
the final abandonment of the structure.


CONDITION OF CASA GRANDE IN 1891

The south and east fronts of Casa Grande seem to have suffered,
particularly from the weather, and here rainstorms have probably caused
some of the damage. The outer faces of the walls are of the same
material as the wall mass, all the masonry being composed of earth from
the immediate site. In the construction of the walls this soil was laid
up in successive courses of varying thickness, whose limits form clearly
defined and approximately horizontal joints. The northeast and southeast
corners of the building have entirely fallen away, and low mounds of
their debris still show many knobs and lumps, parts of the original wall
mass.

The destruction of the walls was due mainly to undermining at the ground
level. The character of this undermining is shown in many of the
illustrations to this report, especially in plate CXVI, and its extent
is indicated on the accompanying ground plan (plate CXVII) by dotted