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Updated: June 12, 2025
"There," says Bancroft in his History of America, "under the suns of June, with timber felled in an inland grove, and dragged for a league over the prairie grass, the colonists prepared to build a shelter, La Salle being the architect, and himself making the beams, and tenons, and mortises."
But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few not omitting even scaffolding or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
It is estimated that all of the sculptures occupy an extent of wall at least three miles in length. All the figures are carved from large blocks of lava. This wonderful temple is built of lava blocks without lime or mortar, the huge stones being jointed most accurately by tenons, mortises, and dovetails which bind them solidly together.
The conditions oppose all preconcerted action, and yet, without chipping or cutting, stone fits stone, and timber fits timber tenons and mortises, and proportions and dimensions, all corresponding so that when the building is complete it is as perfectly proportioned and as accurately fitted as though it had been all prepared in one workshop and put together in advance as a test.
No cement was to be had which could resist the action of water for an indefinite period and maintain the coherence of brickwork subjected to its unsleeping attacks. In order to obtain piers capable of withstanding the current during the great floods, it was better too to use blocks of considerable weight, which could be held together by metal tenons or clasps.
At the extremities it has legs, made exactly alike and jointed on perpendicularly to the extremities of the straightedge, and also crosspieces, fastened by tenons, connecting the straightedge and the legs. These crosspieces have vertical lines drawn upon them, and there are plumblines hanging from the straightedge over each of the lines.
I had a number of oak field-gates made, but as the timber was barely seasoned, we were afraid shrinkage might take place in the mortises and tenons, and it was an agreeable surprise to find in a year or two that nothing of the kind had happened. The mortise hole had apparently got smaller, and still fitted the shrunken tenon to perfection.
But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen, Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance, and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding; or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in, in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
But, granted for the moment that we could devise and successfully apply exact and accurate standards of measurement for human beings, our work would be only partially done. Any mechanic knows that it is a sad waste of time and pains to standardize tenons, with micrometer and emery paper, to a thousandth of an inch, so long as the mortises are left unstandardized.
As soon as the weather is warm enough hire a framer, whose business is to mark out all the tenons and mortices, and to make or superintend the making of them. When ready, the building is put together in what is called bents, each bent consisting of two posts, one on each side of the building, connected together by a strong beam running across the building.
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