of course, to the
destruction of the house by fire.

Adair, in his History of the Southern Indians, says they daub their
houses with tough mortar mixed with dry grass; that they build winter
or hot houses after the manner of Dutch ovens, covered with clay.
Again:

They are lathed with cane and plastered with mud from bottom to
top, within and without, with a good covering of straw.

This seems to mean that the entire building was plastered with mud,
and then covered with grass to shed the rainfall.

In a mound in Arkansas County, Arkansas (Twelfth Ann. Rept. Bur.
Ethn., p. 231)--

About 2 feet under the surface was a thick layer of burnt clay,
which probably formed the roof. In tracing out the circumference
a hard clay floor was found beneath, and between the two several
inches of ashes, but no skeletons. There were a great many pieces
of broken dishes so situated as to lead one to believe they were
on top of the house at the time it was burned.

The fact that no skeletons or utensils were discovered on the floor
finds its most reasonable explanation in the supposition that the
inmates, finding their abode to be unsafe, moved out and took their
possessions with them. This would account, also, for the absence of
such remains in similar mounds farther north. The abundance of pottery
fragments found in this case, and in many others, may mean only that
these were worked in as a part of the clay roofing. They would be of
some service in holding the clay in place in wet weather.

It is quite probable that the continuous, though fragmentary, layer of
burned clay on the floor so often noted is due in part at least to the
material forming the roof. The walls would be more apt to fall outward
than inward, and would be more liable to crumble than to fall as an
intact mass. In fact, this is clearly shown by the statement (p. 229)
that in certain house sites in St. Francis County, Arkansas,

The edges are all higher and have a thicker layer of this
[burned] material than the inner areas.

Further, in describing explorations of certain "hut rings" at
"Beckwith's Fort" in Mississippi County, Missouri (p. 187), the report
states that they are

from 30 to 50 feet in diameter, measuring to the tops of their
rims, which are raised slightly above the natural level. The
depth of the depression at the center is from 2 to 3 feet. Near
the center, somewhat covered with earth, are usually