MINDELEFF] DOORWAYS AND OTHER OPENINGS 165 
the white coating was applied, the left-hand wing and the standard 
below it were filled in, leaving an almost square opening. This later 
filling is not uncommon in De Chelly, and is often found in Tusayan, 
where openings are sometimes reduced for the winter season and 
enlarged again in the summer. Many openings are completely closed, 
either by filling in with masonry or by a stone slab, and examples of 
both of these methods are found in De Chelly. In the third wall from 
the east, in the upper part of Casa Blanca ruin, there is a well-finished 
doorway sealed by a thin slab of stone set in mud. On the right side 
of the opening, about the middle, a loop or staple of wood has been 
built into the wall, and in the corresponding place on the left side a 
stick about half an inch in diameter projects. An opening into the 
small room west of the White House proper has a similar contrivance, 
and another example oceurs in the front wall of the small single room 
in the eastern end of the ruin. Oddly enough the three examples that 
occur in this ruin are all found in adobe walls. 
This feature appears to have been « contrivance for temporarily clos- 
ing openings which were provided with stone slabs, and the latter were 
sealed in place with mud mortar when it was desired to close the room 
permanently. Examples, identical even in details, have been found 
in the Mancos canyon, and one is described and illustrated by Chapin,! 
who states that the slab was 144 inches wide at one end, 154 at the 
other, and 25 inches high, with an average thickness of an inch. He 
meutions staples on both sides. Nordenskidld? illustrates another or 
possibly the same example. He notes, however, an inner frame com- 
posed of small sticks and mud against which the slab rested. He 
thinks the notched doorways belonged to rooms most frequented in 
daily life, while the others belonged in general to storerooms or other 
chambers requiring a door to close them. 
Taken as a whole, the settlements in De Chelly appear to have been 
well provided with doorways and other openings, and there is no per- 
ceptible difference in this respect between the various classes of ruins. 
Openings were freely left in the walls, wherever convenience dictated, 
and without regard to the defensive motive, which, in the large valley 
pueblos, brought about the requirement that all the first-story rooms 
should be entered from the roof, a requirement which has only recently 
given way to the greater convenience of an entrance on the ground 
level. 
ROOFS, FLOORS, AND TIMBER WORK 
In the pueblo system of construction roofs and floors are the same; 
in other words, the roof of one toom is the floor of the room above, 
and where a room or house is but one story high no change in the 
method of construction is made. The erection of walls was only a 
question of time, as the unit of the masonry is small; but the construe- 
tion of a roof was a much harder task, as the beams were necessarily 
‘Land of the Cliff Dwellers, pp. 149-150, pl. opp. p. 155. 
2 Chiff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, pp. 52-53, fig. 28 

