200 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 118 



tire. The logs would be too far apart and too large to be reduced to 

 charcoal by such incomplete combustion as could take place within 

 it. When it had to be removed its mechanical destruction was the 

 only possible manner of clearing the site. In some of the earlier 

 and smaller structures on Site No. 10 it appears that the site was 

 cleared by the entire removal of the old structure. In the larger 

 structures this could have been accomplished by using poles as levers 

 to disengage the ends of the horizontal logs from the vertical forks 

 and by allowing these horizontal logs with all their weight of earth 

 to fall on the town-house floor. Being unburned, they soon decayed 

 and in some cases would leave horizontal molds of large-sized logs 

 over the floor of the town-house structure, as found on Sites Nos. 10 

 and 19 and shown in plate 49, #, and plate 96, b. Such vertical posts 

 as were left standing by this method of destruction could either be 

 burned off above the ground or "wiggled" loose by pushing them 

 laterally backward and forward and lifting them out ; or they could, 

 if desired, be built into the wall of the new structure to be erected 

 on the site, as was done in Site No. 19 (pi. 108). 



Of course, one cannot be sure that these were the exact steps in 

 the destruction and removal of such a "large-log" town house, but 

 some such method would have been sufficient to have removed it. 

 Whatever the method used, the facts remain that (1) the old struc- 

 tures were removed and new ones were built on the same site; 

 (2) they were not burned; (3) vertical logs of lower structures have 

 been found incorporated in later structures; and (4) horizontal 

 large log molds have been found in the floor of "large-log" town 

 houses. 



These facts necessitate some such explanation. The discovery of 

 rock under the ends of post remnants raises a question of the reason 

 for their presence. In many cases these stones were smaller than 

 the ends of the posts. They could hardly have been there for any 

 service in preventing the log from settling too deep. Why were they 

 put in the hole made to receive the post? Why not more earth? 

 Could it be that in attempting to bring all of the horizontal beams 

 of a building under construction to the same level they wanted to 

 raise certain posts just a few inches higher after the forked ends 

 of the posts had been engaged with the roof beams? If this need 

 ever arose, and it would seem certain that it would arise in this 

 method of construction, what would have been easier or more efficient 

 than to have selected a stone of the right thickness and smaller than 

 the post, if necessary, and have it slipped under the base of the post, 

 as shown in plate 109, a? Having seen seven such posts thus sup- 

 ported in one structure, the opinion is expressed that this stone was 

 used to "level up" the horizontal logs of the roof preparatory to 

 receiving the covering earth. 



