tpn . 
Climate may force migratory races to change their dress, food 
and mode of living; but, strangely enough, the last imported—habit-to. 
be changed is that of the structure of their dwellings. In tropic 
Australia, to-day, the English settler builds an English house. The 
Dutch occupants of some of the East India Islands build on spiles 
Hollandish houses, though the houses be far above the floods. The 
Pueblo Indians along the Rio Grande, and down both slopes of the 
Sierra Madre, in New 
Mexico and Arizona, 
whose towns, from time 
immemorial, were sub- 
ject to attack from 
nomad Apaches and 
Navajoes, had no ex- 
terior windows or doors 
to their houses. Access 
was, and in many cases 
is had, by means of 
ladders that can be 
drawn up, and ingress 
is made through the 
roof, as through a. 
hatch in the hold of a 
ship. It might be urged 
as an argument that 
the Pueblos and the. 
Mayas had a common 
origin; that the ruins | 
in Yucatan show that _ 
all the stairs are on the 
outside. It is evident 
that this was not done. 
for the purpose of de- 
fence, as in the case of 
the Pueblos; but it is 
not unreasonable to 
suppose that the ex- 
eet 
terior stairs is a sur-_ 
vival Of a form of 
is 
architecture forced 
upon the Mayas before they were pushed or advanced to the South, 
from the land of the present Pueblo. But, be all this as it may, the 
stairway, or stairways—for, in the case of pyramids and some other 
structures, there was a superabundance of them—are the most striking 
features of the Maya and Central American ruins. These stairways 
are broad and well-built, the rails being designed from colossal ser- 
pents. These serpents, with the tiger and turtle, are the favorite 
emblems of the builders. The angle of these stairs is about forty- 
five, with ten inches, or a little more, to the step rise. We repro- 
duce Professor Holmes’ superstructure and base designs of some of 
the more typical buildings, to show this peculiaritv of Maya archi- 
tecture. 
Professor Holmes calls attention to a persistent feature in the 
architecture of these ruins, and that is the two lines of mouldings, “one 
of which extends around the building nearly mid-way in its height, and 
the other at the top, associated with the coping stones. The mural 
space is thus divided into two zones, of nearly equal width, the upper — 
representing the entablature of classic styles. * * * * The high — 
arched gateways or portals, which penetrate some of the buildings, 
usually giving entrance to the court, extend upward into the upper 
decorated zone. The flying fagade, sometimes added above to give 
j— 
an 
