STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS. 

 MASONRY AND OTHER DETAILS. 



The masonry of the stone villages throughout all the region here 

 treated is of the same type, although there are some variations. It 

 does not compare with the fine work found on the San Juan and its 

 tributaries, although belonging to that type — the walls being composed 

 of two faces with rubble filling, and the interstices of the large stones 

 being filled or chinked with spalls. This chinking is more pronounced 

 and better done in the northern part of the region than in tlie south. 



The rock employed depended in all cases on the immediate environ- 

 ments of the site of the village, the walls being composed in some cases 

 of slabs of limestone, in other cases of river bowlders only, and in still 

 others of both in combination. The walls of the large ruin near Lime- 

 stone creek were composed of rude slabs of limestone with an inter- 

 mixture of bowlders. The bowlders usually occur only in the lower 

 part of the wall, near the ground, and in several cases, where nothing 

 exists of the wall above the surface of the ground, the remains con- 

 sist entirely of bowlders. A gpod example of this peculiarity of con- 

 struction is shown in plate SLiv, and plate lxv shows the character of 

 stone employed and also a section of standing wall on the western side 

 of the village. A section of standing wall near the center of the ruin is 

 illustrated in plate xiii. It will be noticed that some of the walls shown 

 in this illustration are chinked, but to a very slight extent. The wall 

 represeiited in plate xlv has slabs of limestone set on edge. This 

 feature is found also in other ruins in this region, notably in those 

 opposite Verde, though it seems to be more used in the south than in 

 the north. An example occurring in the ruin opposite Verde is shown 

 in plate xlvi. In this case chinking is more pronounced; the walls are 

 from 2 to 2i feet thick, built in the ordinary way with two faces and 

 an interior filling, but the stones are large and the tilling is almost 

 wholly adobe mortar. The two faces are tied together by extra long 

 stones which occasionally project into the Ijack of one or the other face. 



The western cluster of the ruin last mentioned, shown on the ground 

 plan (plate xvii), has almost all its walls still standing, and the masonry, 

 while of the same general character as that of the main cluster, is 

 better executed. The stones composing the walls are smaller than those 

 in the main cluster and more uniform in size, and the interstices are 

 carefully chinked. The chinking is distinctive in that spalls were not 

 used, but more or less flattened river pebbles. The different color and 

 texture of these pebbles make them stand out from the wall distinctly, 

 giving quite an ornamental effect. 

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