258 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
composed.”! He also speaks of “large blocks of hewn stone used in the 
doorways.”” <A soft coralline limestone could be easily worked with flint 
implements when first taken from the quarry, and would harden after 
exposure to the air. The size and nature of the stones used is some evi- 
dence of limited advancement in solid stone architecture.? 
These structures, as reproduced in engravings by Stephens and Cather- 
wood, may well excite surprise and admiration for the taste, skill, and 
industry they display, and the degree of progress they reveal. When 
rightly understood, they will enable us to estimate the extent of the prog- 
ress actually made, which was truly remarkable for a people still in barbar- 
ism, and no further advanced than the Middle Status. 
2 = 
Fa. 50.—Side elevation of pyramidal platform of Governor’s House. 
We have seen that the style of architecture in New Mexico brought 
the Indians to the house-tops as the common place of living. At first sug- 
gested for security, it became in time a settled habit of life. The same 
want was met in Yucatan and Chiapas by a new expedient, namely, a pyra- 
midal platform or elevation of earth, twenty, thirty, and forty feet high, 
upon the level summits of which their great houses were erected. These 
platforms were made still higher for small buildings. A natural elevation 
being, when practicable, selected, the top was leveled or raised by artificial 
means, the sides made rectangular and sloping, and faced on the four sides 
with a dry stone wall, the ascent being made by a flight of stone steps. It 
was not uncommon to find two such platforms, and sometimes three, one 
above the other, as shown in the figure. These platforms, called terraces, 
were the gathering and the lounging places of the inhabitants. 
The edifices in the regions named are almost invariably but one story 
high, and but two rooms deep, the walls being carried up vertically to an 
‘Rambles in Yucatan, p. 127. 21b., p. 128. 
