180 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
upper and lower faces of the stone are substantially, but not exactly, paral- 
lel. It also shows one angle, which is substantially, but not exactly, a right 
angle and it was so adjusted that the long edge was on the doorway and 
short one in the wall of a chamber or apartment, with the right angle at 
the corner between 
them. This stone was 
yap evidently prepared by 
MH fracture, probably with 
H a stone maul, and the 
Ma vegularity of the break- 
age was doubtless partly 
EBS AMS SUD US Heo OTE due to skill and partly 
to accident. It shows no marks of the chisel or the drove, or of having 
been rubbed, and where the square is applied to the sides or angles the 
rudeness of the stone is perfectly apparent. 
Fig. 41 a represents a sandstone cut by American skilled workmen in 
the form of a brick, and it is intended to show by comparison the great dif- 
ference between the dressed stone of the 
civilized man and the ruder stone of the 
mason in the condition of barbarism. The 
comparison shows that no instruments of 
exactness were used in the stone work of 
the pueblo, and that exactness was not at- 
BEE Freee Ose ie pe tempted. But the accuracy of a practiced 
comparison with Fig. 41. eye and hand, such as their methods af- 
forded, was reached, and this was all they attempted. With stones as rude 
as that shown in the figure, a fair and even respectable stone wall may 
be laid. The art of architecture in stone is of slow and difficult growth. 
Stone prepared by fracture with a stone hammer precedes dressed stone, 
which requires metallic implements. In like manner mud mortar or adobe 
mortar precedes a mortar of lime and sand. The Village Indians of America 
were working their way experimentally, and step by step, in the art of 
house-building, as all mankind have been obliged to do, each race for 
itself; and the structures the Village Indians have raised in various parts 
