47 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



primitive structures as is to be found among the modern mission 

 Indians, and is quite primitive. The roof is composed of thick 

 branches of a kind of sage-brush, and the pole wattles constitut- 

 ing its sides are chinked with mud. 



= Late in mission history the houses were built of sun-dried 

 bricks, and were reasonably comfortable habitations, but in the 

 early period they were most miserable affairs. Vancouver de- 

 scribes them in 1792, and they were evidently nothing but the 

 native huts, made of willow saplings planted in the earth and 

 brought together at the top, with twigs interwoven and with a 

 thatching of grass and rushes. Vancouver says of them : " These 



Fig. 4.— Adobe House op Mission Indians, Coahuila Valley, San Diego County. 



miserable habitations, each of which was allotted for the resi- 

 dence of a whole family, were erected with some degree of uni- 

 formity, about three or four feet asunder, in straight rows, leaving 

 lanes or passages at right angles between them ; but these were so 

 abominably infested with every kind of filth and nastiness as 

 to be rendered not less offensive than degrading to the human 

 species." 



Fig. 4 shows the modern adobe house, the use of adobe being 

 introduced into California by the Spaniards. 



The fact is, that in the aboriginal state the sanitary condition 

 of the Indians was preserved by seasonal changes of residence, or 

 by burning the houses, for one reason or another, chiefly super- 

 stitious. They probably never burned them of their own accord 



