INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



What could have been more natural, more economical 

 more inevitable than the utilization of these lami- 

 nated cliffs as dwellings by the Pueblo Indians who 

 cultivated the areas below? 



Though the earliest forms of human habitations 

 may be less ingenious than much of the architecture 

 of the birds and the animals in structure and design 

 they, nevertheless, possess greater interest for us not 

 only by reason of what has been developed from them, 

 but because by working backward, so to speak, we are 

 able to trace architectural forms and designs through 

 them directly to their origins in nature. When ana- 

 lyzed, the different styles of architecture are seen to 

 be descended even in their latest developments from 

 the building materials of the days of primitive effort. 

 In the earliest period of Egyptian civilization, there 

 rose along the alluvial deposits of a great river an archi- 

 tecture of reeds and mud. Parallelograms were built 

 of bundles of reeds tied together at the top and set 

 upright at intervals; spanning these lay a straight 

 roof, suitable to the dry climate, made also of reeds 

 and strengthened with clay. The pressure of the roof 

 upon these reed pillars was resisted by a horizontal rule 

 laid on top of the pillars. This is, obviously, the origin 

 of the cornice. When stone began to be used the old 

 pillar of clustered reeds, tied at the top, and bulging 

 below, was rigorously copied. Moreover, on the mud 

 structures ornamentation in high relief was clearly 

 impossible, and we see in all Egyptian architecture a 

 predilection in favor of the engraved figure and the 

 hieroglyphics suitable to its first structures. 



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