between these freaks of creation and the results of human workmanship,
repeatedly called out, "Casas Grandes! Casas de Montezuma!"

It would seem, indeed, as if the ancient peoples of this country, in order
to arrive at the idea of a large architecture, had only to copy the
grotesque rock-work of nature. Who knows but that such might have been the
germinal idea of their constructions? Mrs. Stanley was quite sure of it.
In fact, she was disposed to maintain that the trap walls were really
human masonry, and the production of Montezuma, or of the Amazons invented
by Coronado.

"Those four-sided and six-sided stones look altogether too regular to be
accidental," was her conclusion. Notwithstanding her belief in a
superintending Deity, she had an idea that much of this world was made by
hazard, or perhaps by the Old Harry.

In one valley the ancient demon of water-force had excelled himself in
enchantments. The slopes of the alluvial soil were dotted with little
buttes of mingled sandstone and shale, varying from five to twenty feet in
height, many of them bearing a grotesque likeness to artificial objects.
There were columns, there were haystacks, there were enormous bells, there
were inverted jars, there were junk bottles, there were rustic seats. Most
of these fantastic figures were surmounted by a flat capital, the remnant
of a layer of stone harder than the rest of the mass, and therefore less
worn by the water erosion.

One fragment looked like a monstrous gymnastic club standing upright, with
a broad button to secure the grip. Another was a mighty centre-table, fit
for the halls of the Scandinavian gods, consisting of a solid prop or
pedestal twelve feet high, swelling out at the top into a leaf fifteen