MINDELEFF] ADOBE AND JACAL CONSTRUCTION 163 
of compacted dung. An example is shown in plate Li, and others are 
mentioned in the text under the descriptions of various ruins. 
It has been suggested that the compacted dung found in the ruins 
was the product not of sheep, but of some other domesticated animal 
which existed in this country at the time of the first Spanish invasion, 
but the evidence to support this hypothesis is so very slight that so 
far the suggestion is only asuggestion. Not the slightest trace of this 
animal has been found, although it is alleged that it was domesticated 
among the pueblos three hundred and fifty years ago. 
Although the idea of a strengthening or supporting buttress is 
thought to be a foreign introduction, a hypothesis that is strength- 
ened by the occurrence of other features, the masonry itself is aborig- 
inal in its principles and probably also in execution. The conservatism 
of the Indian mind in such matters is well known. The Zuni today 
use stone more than adobe, although for a hundred years or more there 
has been an adobe church in the midst of the village. 
Adobe construction in this region is only partially successful. North 
of the Gila river, in the plateau country, the climate is not suited to it; 
the rains are too heavy and the frosts are destructive. Constant vigi- 
lance and prompt repairs are necessary, and even then the adobe work 
is not satisfactory. Certainly in the northern part of the country the 
aborigines would not have developed this method of construction in 
the face of the difficulties with which it is surrounded; yet there are 
examples of adobe work in some of the most important ruins in De 
Chelly, as has already been stated. The fact that the only previously 
known examples of adobe work occur in ruins which are known to have 
been inhabited subsequent to the Spanish conquest, such as the ruin of 
Awatobi, in Tusayan, is suggestive. Moreover, adobe construction in 
this region belongs to a late period; for the walls are almost always 
very thin, usually 6 or Tinches. The old type of massive walls, 2 or even 
3 feet thick, are seldom or never found constructed of adobe, although 
such thickness is more necessary in this material than in stone. 
There is another method of construction which, although not masonry, 
should be noticed here. This is the equivalent of the Mexican “ jacal” 
construction, and consists of series of poles or logs planted vertically 
in the ground close to each other and plastered with mud either outside 
or on both sides. The only example of this found in the canyon occurs 
in the western part of the lower Casa Blanca ruin, and has already been 
mentioned. Did it not occur elsewhere it could be dismissed here as 
simply another item of evidence of the modern occupancy of the ruin, 
but Dr W. R. Birdsall mentions walls in the Mesa Verde ruins which 
are “continued upward upon a few tiers of stone by wickerwork 
heavily plastered inside and outside”! and Nordenskiéld mentions a 
similar construction in the interior of a kiva. Whether a similar foun- 
dation or lower part of stone existed in the Casa Blanca ruin could not 
be determined without excavation. 
1 Bull. Am. Geog. Soe., vol. Xx, p. 598. 
