Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/821

Rh In my opinion, the next step taken in advance is by the Mojaves of Arizona, and those Indians build for themselves homes which are more or less permanent dwellings. One of these is shown in Fig. 2, and its architecture is certainly very remarkable. The upright portion of the frame is composed of very heavy timbers, each piece being completely stripped of its bark and firmly implanted in the ground. The rafters and the frame and ridge-piece for them to rest upon are also of timber much stouter than is at all necessary to support the roof. This



latter is composed of long prairie grass overlaid with a thick coat of mud-plaster. It is quite impervious to the rain, and the eaves at one side are not more than a foot and a half above the ground. Indeed, the peak or ridge of this house is hardly as high as an ordinary man's head. All the sides and the front are left open, but the back is usually built up with timber and filled in with mud-plaster, or sometimes these Indians build this kind of an abode into an embankment at its rear. Internally it is not partitioned off into rooms at all, and the right-hand side of the dwelling constitutes a sort of a porch or wing, wherein the roof is