MORGAN. ] STONES USED SHOW NATURAL FACES. 179 
been emptied by the Indians) with solid masses of mortar and stones.”? 
Norman, speaking of the ruins of the House of the Cacique at Chichen, 
remarks, ‘that the wall is made of large and uniformly square blocks of 
limestone set in mortar, which appears to be as durable as the stone itself.”? 
Elsewhere, speaking of the ruins of Yucatan generally, he observes, ‘the 
stones are cut in parallelopipeds of about twelve inches in length and six in 
breadth, the interstices filled up of the same materials of which the terraces 
are composed.”* That these tribes used mortar of some kind in their stone 
walls cannot be doubted, but these-several statements do not prove the use 
of quick-lime, which is the main question Mr. Stephens’ statement satis- 
fied me until I saw the New Mexican pueblos. These show that a very 
-efficient mortar can be had without the use of lime. The Indians of Mexico 
and the coast tribes near Vera Cruz plastered their houses externally with 
gypsum, which made them a brilliant white, and the stucco used upon 
the inner walls of houses in Chiapas and Yucatan was not unlikely made 
of gypsum. This mineral is abundant as well as easily treated. From it 
comes plaster of Paris, and from it may have come in some form the bond 
which held the mortar together, to the strength of which Mr. Stephens refers. 
The neatness and general correctness of the masonry is now best seen 
in the doorways. In the standing walls of the second story, and of the 
first, where occasionally uncovered, there are to be seen two doorways in 
each room, as before stated, running in all cases across the building from the 
court side toward the external wall, and never in the direction of its length. 
These doorways measured some three feet two inches in height by two feet 
six inches in width, and others three feet four inches by two feet seven 
inches. 
The stone used in these doorways are rather smaller than those in 
other parts of the wall, but prepared in the same manner. 
I brought away two of these stones, taken from the standing walls of 
the main building, as samples of the character of the work with respect to 
size and dressing. Fig. 41 represents one 9f them, engraved from a photo- 
graph. It measures eight inches in its greatest length by six inches in its 
greatest width, and it is two and three-quarter inches in thickness. The 
1 Central American, Chiapas and Yucatan, vol. ii, p. 23. 2?Rambles in Yucatan, p.120. 8 Ib., p. 127. 
