The stonework of the prehistoric builders excites the wonder and
admiration of the beholder--admiration for the grand and beautiful
simplicity of the Inca masonry, wonder as to the methods employed in
its accomplishment. What the means were we do not know--at best we
can only conjecture. The modern Indians--in fact, many of the upper
class of Peruvians--prefer to explain it by magical methods, such as
softening the rocks by rubbing them with the juice of some plant or
fruit. Only the combined labor of hundreds of people, understanding the
lever and the inclined plane, could have moved some of the huge rocks
that form many of the walls. And moving them would be the easiest part
of the work. How they succeeded in fitting these monoliths together, so
that in places the joints are too fine for the naked eye to discern,
is quite beyond the ken of the modern stone-worker. Formerly it was
thought that the larger terraces were chiefly for defensive purposes;
but the fact that these, as well as those more plainly agricultural
in character, show the underlying strata of stones to be covered with
fine agricultural soils that must have been brought from a distance,
would indicate, according to some of our scientists, that these also
were used to produce crops. The importance attached to agriculture can
be understood from the fact that the majority of the terraces equal in
fineness of masonry even the palaces of the Incas. Lacking timber, the
Incas used stone as the chief building material, and, although they had
not evolved the pure arch, they had learned to secure strength through
the keying together of irregular blocks, and, as Dr. Bingham writes,
“had developed many ingenious devices, such as lock-holes for fastening
a bar back of the door; ringstones, which were inserted in the gables
to enable the rafters to be tied on; and projecting cylinder stones,
which could be used as points to which to tie the roof and keep it from
blowing off.”
[Illustration: RUINS OF TORONTOY