MECHANICAL ARTS. 203 



complish so much. Even a bridle-bit or a 

 pair of spurs it would no doubt puzzle the 

 'cutest' Yankee to fashion after a Mexican 

 model — such as I have seen manufactured 

 by the commonest blacksmiths of the country. 



In carpentry and cabinet-work the me- 

 chanic has to labor to great disadvantage, on 

 account of a want of tools and scarcity of 

 suitable timber. Their boards have to be 

 hewed out with the axe — sawed lumber being 

 absolutely unknown throughout New Mexico. 

 except what is occasionally cut by foreigners. 

 The axe commonly used for splitting and 

 hewing is formed after the model of those 

 clumsy hatchets known as 'squaw-axes' 

 among Indian traders. Yet this is not unfre- 

 quently the only tool of the worker in wood : 

 a cart or a plow is often manufactured with- 

 out even an auger, a chisel, or a drawing- 

 knife. 



In architecture, the people do not seem to 

 have arrived at any great perfection, but ratlier 

 to have conformed themselves to the clumsy 



yle which prevailed among the aborigines, 

 than to waste then time in studying modern 

 masonry and the use of Hme. The materials 

 generally used for building are of tlie crudest 

 possible description ; consisting of unburnt, 

 sun-dried bricks, cemented together with 



s 



of mortar made of simple clay and 

 sand. These bricks are called adohes, and 

 every edifice, from the church to the palaao, 

 is constructed of the same stuff. In fact, 

 I should remark, perhaps, that tliough all 



