MEXICAN HISTORY AND ARCHEOLOGY. 13 



so as to constitute the Indian lodge, which preserves the same shape as the tent. 

 As he becomes less nomadic, begins to possess property, family, flocks, and herds, 

 and requires more covered space for protection as well as comfort, he discovers that 

 a square affords more commodious room than an angle, and his edifice assumes a 

 new shape by the use of several of his simple architectural elements, instead of two. 

 Accordingly, he plants his stouter timbers upright in the ground, and lays across 



them a covering of branches and leaves, so as to form a square: . But 



this, in the course of time, admits of improvement — especially as the flat covering- 

 is not as sure a protection against rain as his original tent ; and, accordingly, on 

 the last of his inventions he elevates the first, so as to preserve his space and insure 



additional comfort: 1 j. Perhaps, instead of forming his tent by simple 



boughs or poles, lodged against each other, he has contented himself with bending 

 the saplings together, and thus produces the elemental shapes of the Roman and 



Gothic arches : / \ / \ . As wandering families unite in tribes, and 



tribes grow into communities, and communities associate in municipalities or 

 nations, their most skilful builders discover that mechanical genius has no more 

 elements for architectural progress in forms than a straight line and a curve ; so 

 that all invention is limited, by an irreversible law, to their wise and tasteful 

 combination. 



Is it hazarding too much, then, to assert that, in early stages of civilization, we 

 must naturally expect to see much of the type of national status in architectural 

 combinations of the mound and pyramid? 



Again ; is it venturing too far to suggest that, when people emerge from early 

 stages of civilization, and rise to vigorous, masculine, and refined nationality, they 

 abandon the propped weakness of leaning pyramidal shapes, and seek the massive, 

 self-sustaining independence of upright, perpendicular forms? 1 



1 These are general suggestions upon the world's progress in mechanics and taste, and altogether 

 independent of art as controlled by climatic or geological necessities. A perfectly flat roof in Switzer- 

 land would cave in under accumulated snows, and an unsupported edifice in a volcanic region would be 

 destroyed wherever earthquakes were frequent and violent. 



