trimmed to a width
corresponding to the thickness of the walls. Of course where a
projecting cornice is built, it can be made, to some extent, to conform
to the width of available coping stones. These can usually be procured,
however, of nearly uniform width. In the case of the overhanging
cornices the necessary projection is attained by continuing either the
main roof beams, or sometimes the smaller poles of the second series,
according to the position of the required cornice, for a foot or more
beyond the outer face of the wall. Over these poles the roofing is
continued as in ordinary roof construction with the exception that the
edge of the earth covering is built of masonry, an additional precaution
against its destruction by the rains. In many places the adobe
plastering originally applied to the faces of these cornices, as well as
to the walls, has been washed away, exposing the whole construction. In
some of these instances the face of the cornice furnishes a complete
section of the roof, in which all the series of its construction can be
readily identified. The protective agency of these coping stones is well
illustrated in Pl. XCVII, which shows the destructive effect of rain at
a point where an open joint has admitted enough water to bare the
masonry of the cornice face, eating through its coating of adobe, while
at the firmly closed joint toward the left there has been no erosive
action. The much larger proportion of projecting copings or cornices in
Zuni, as compared with Tusayan, is undoubtedly attributable to the
universal smoothing of the walls with adobe, and to the more general use
of this perishable medium in this village, and the consequent necessity
for protecting the walls. The efficiency of this means of protecting the
wall against the wear of weather is seen in the preservation of external
whitewashing for several feet below such a cornice on the face of the
walls. At the pueblo of Acoma a similar extensive use of projecting
cornices is met with, particularly on the third story walls. Here again
it is due to the use of adobe, which has been more frequently employed
in the finish of the higher and newer portions of the village than in
the lower terraces. As a rule these overhanging copings occur
principally on the southern exposures of the buildings and on the
terraced sides of house rows. When walls rise to the height of several
stories directly from the ground, such as the back walls of house rows