MINDELEF¥.] ZUNI MASONRY. 143 
corresponding to the adjoining floor level, but this effect is due simply 
to a clever adaptation of the house wall to an existing ledge of sand- 
stone. The latter has had scarcely any artificial treatment beyond the 
partial smoothing of the rock in a few places and the cutting out of a 
small niche from the rocky wall. This niche occupies about the same 
position in this room that it does in the ordinary pueblo house. It is 
remarkable that the pueblo builders did not to a greater extent utilize 
their skill in working stone in the preparation of some of the irregular 
rocky sites that they have at times occupied for the more convenient 
reception of their wall foundations; but in nearly all such cases the 
buildings have been modified to suit the ground. An example of this 
practice is illustrated in Pl. xxru, from the west side of Walpi. In 
some of the ancient examples the labor required to so prepare the sites 
would not have exceeded that expended on the massive masonry com- 
posed of numberless small stones. Many of the older works testify to 
the remarkable patience and industry of the builders in amassing and 
carefully adjusting vast quantities of building materials, and the mod- 
ern Indians of Tusayan and Cibola have inherited much of this ancient 
spirit; yet this industry was rarely diverted to the excavation of room 
or Village sites, except in the case of the kivas, in which special motives 
led to the practice. In some of the Chaco pueblos, as now seen, the 
floors of outer marginal rooms seem to be depressed below the general 
level of the surrounding soil; but it is now difficult to determine whether 
such was the original arrangement, as much sand and soil have drifted 
against the outer walls, raising the surface. In none of the pueblos 
within the limits of the provinces under discussion has there been found 
any evidence of the existence of underground cellars; the rooms that 
answer such purpose are built on the level of the ground. At Tusayan 
the ancient practice of using the ground-floor rooms for storage still 
prevails. In these are kept the dried fruit, vegetables, and meats that 
constitute the principal winter food of the Tusayan. Throughout Tu- 
sayan the walls of the first terrace rooms are not finished with as much 
care as those above that face the open courts. A quite smoothly fin- 
ished coat of adobe is often seen in the upper stories, but is much more 
rarely applied to the rough masonry of the ground-floor rooms. At 
Zui no such difference of treatment is to be seen, a result of the recent 
departure from their original defensive use. At the present day most 
of the rooms that are built on the ground have external doors, often of 
large size, and are regarded by the Zuni as preferable to the upper 
terraces as homes. This indicates that the idea of convenience has 
already largely overcome the traditional defensive requirements of 
pueblo arrangement. The general finish and quality of the masonry, 
too, does not vary noticeably in different portions of the village. An 
occasional wall may be seen in which underlying stones may be traced 
through the thin adobe covering, as in one of the walls of the court 
illustrated in Pl, LXxxu1, but most of the walls have a fairly smooth 
