The introduction of the use of adobe in Zuñi should probably be attributed to foreign influence, but the position of the village in the open plain at a distance of several miles from the nearest outcrop of suitable building stone naturally led the builders to use stone more sparingly when an available substitute was found close at hand. The thin slabs of stone, which had to be brought from a great distance, came to be used only for the more exposed portions of buildings, such as copings on walls and borders around roof openings. Still, the pueblo

builders never attained to a full appreciation of the advantages and requirements of this medium as compared with stone. The adobe walls are built only as thick as is absolutely necessary, few of them being more than a foot in thickness. The walls are thus, in proportion, to height and weight, sustained, thinner than the crude brick construction of other peoples, and require protection and constant repairs to insure durability. As to thickness, they are evidently modeled directly after the walls of stone masonry, which had already, in both Tusayan and Cibola, been pushed to the limit of thinness. In fact, since the date of the survey of Zuñi, on which the published plan is based, the walls of several rooms over the court passageway in the house, illustrated in [Pl. LXXXII], have entirely fallen in, demonstrating the insufficiency of the thin walls to sustain the weight of several stories.

The climate of the pueblo region is not wholly suited to the employment of adobe construction, as it is there practiced. For several months in the year (the rainy season) scarcely a day passes without violent storms which play havoc with the earth-covered houses, necessitating constant vigilance and frequent repairs on the part of the occupants.

Though the practice of mud-coating all walls has in Cibola undoubtedly led to greater carelessness and a less rigid adherence to ancient methods of construction, the stone masonry may still be seen to retain some of the peculiarities that characterize ancient examples. Features of this class are still more apparent at Tusayan, and notwithstanding the rudeness of much of the modern stone masonry of this province, the fact that the builders are familiar with the superior methods of the ancient builders, is clearly shown in the masonry of the present villages.

Perhaps the most noteworthy characteristic of pueblo masonry, and one which is more or less present in both ancient and modern examples, is the use of small chinking stones for bringing the masonry to an even face after the larger stones forming the body of the wall have been laid in place. This method of construction has, in the case of some of the best built ancient pueblos, such as those on the Chaco in New Mexico, resulted in the production of marvelously finished stone walls, in which the mosaic-like bits are so closely laid as to show none but the finest joints on the face of the wall with but little trace of mortar. The chinking wedges necessarily varied greatly in dimensions to suit the sizes of the interstices between the larger stones of the wall. The use of stone in this manner no doubt suggested the banded walls that form so striking a feature in some of the Chaco houses. This arrangement was likely to be brought about by the occurrence in the cliffs of seams of stone of two degrees of thickness, suggesting to the builders the use of stones of similar thickness in continuous bands. The ornamental effect of this device was originally an accidental result of adopting the most convenient method of using the material at hand. Though the masonry of the modern pueblos does not afford examples of distinct bands, the

introduction of the small chinking spalls often follows horizontal lines of considerable length. Even in mud-plastered Zuñi, many outcrops of these thin, tabular wedges protrude from the partly eroded mudcoating of a wall and indicate the presence of this kind of stone masonry. An example is illustrated in [Fig. 34], a tower-like projection at the northeast corner of house No. 2.

Fig. 34. Stone wedges of Zuñi masonry exposed in rain-washed wall.

In the Tusayan house illustrated in [Pl. LXXXIV], the construction of which was observed at Oraibi, the interstices between the large stones that formed the body of the wall, containing but small quantities of