"
[Illustration: Fig. 86. An ancient circular doorway or "stone-close"
in Kin-tiel.]
Mr. Cushing had found displaced fragments of such circular stone
doorways at ruins some distance northwest from Zu?i, but had been under
the impression that they were used as roof openings. All examples of
this device known to the writer as having been found in place occurred
in side walls of rooms. Mr. E. W. Nelson, while making collections of
pottery from ruins near Springerville, Arizona, found and sent to the
Smithsonian Institution, in the autumn of 1884, "a flat stone about 18
inches square with a round hole cut in the middle of it. This stone was
taken from the wall of one of the old ruined stone houses near
Springerville, in an Indian ruin. The stone was set in the wall between
two inner rooms of the ruin, and evidently served as a means of
communication or perhaps a ventilator. I send it on mainly as an example
of their stone-working craft." The position of this feature in the
excavated room of Kin-tiel is indicated on the ground plan, Fig. 60,
which also shows the position of other details seen in the general view
of the room, Pl. C.
A small fragment of a "stone-close" doorway was found incorporated into
the masonry of a flight of outside stone steps at Pescado, indicating
its use in some neighboring ruin, thus bringing it well within the
Cibola district. Another point at which similar remains have been
brought to light is the pueblo of Halona, just across the river from the
present Zu?i.
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