ainy season) scarcely a day passes without violent storms
which play havoc with the earth-covered houses, necessitating constant
vigilance and frequent repairs on the part of the occupants.

Though the practice of mud-coating all walls has in Cibola undoubtedly
led to greater carelessness and a less rigid adherence to ancient
methods of construction, the stone masonry may still be seen to retain
some of the peculiarities that characterize ancient examples. Features
of this class are still more apparent at Tusayan, and notwithstanding
the rudeness of much of the modern stone masonry of this province, the
fact that the builders are familiar with the superior methods of the
ancient builders, is clearly shown in the masonry of the present
villages.

[Illustration: Plate LXVI. Kinna-Zinde.]

Perhaps the most noteworthy characteristic of pueblo masonry, and one
which is more or less present in both ancient and modern examples, is
the use of small chinking stones for bringing the masonry to an even
face after the larger stones forming the body of the wall have been laid
in place. This method of construction has, in the case of some of the
best built ancient pueblos, such as those on the Chaco in New Mexico,
resulted in the production of marvelously finished stone walls, in which
the mosaic-like bits are so closely laid as to show none but the finest
joints on the face of the wall with but little trace of mortar. The
chinking wedges necessarily varied greatly in dimensions to suit the
sizes of the interstices between the larger stones of the wall. The use
of stone in this manner no doubt suggested the banded walls that form so
striking a feature in some of the Chaco houses. This arrangement was
likely to be brought about by the occurrence in the cliffs of seams of
stone of two degrees of thickness, suggesting to the builders the use of
stones of similar thickness in continuous bands. The ornamental effect
of this device was originally an accidental result of adopting the most
convenient method of using the material at hand. Though the masonry of
the modern pueblos does not afford examples of distinct bands, the
introduction of the small chinking spalls often follows horizontal lines
of considerable length. Even in mud-plastered Zuni, many outcrops of
these thin, tabular wedges protrude from the partly eroded mudcoating of
a wall and indicate the presence of this kind of stone masonry. An
example is illustrated in Fig. 34, a