Adobe+Bricks

Adobe Bricks and the Mission Building Material Missions were generally made out of local materials. Originally, there were largely reed structures; often no more than huts. As the colonization continued and more native peoples were made available for work, the missions started to be constructed out of adobe but they still had reed roofs and dirt floors. Still later, after some of the uprisings, the mission roofs were covered with tile over the reed roofing; this helped to prevent fires and better protected the adobe walls which tended to basically melt in the rains. The dirt floors were eventually replaced with adobe/clay, tile, what's called Roman Cement, or wood or stone. Of these materials, adobe was the most common as it's basically dried mud made from local dirts with added vegetable materials. Construction of an adobe building is actually fairly straightforward; although very labor intensive. Raw materials have to be gathered; bricks, tiles and lumber have to be made or worked; and then all the processed raw materials had to be put together into the building. Of course, all of this work required labor and also had to be coordinated with all the other daily tasks (e.g., tending to the agriculture and livestock plus prayers and education). Let's look at the basic ingredients. from: http://missiontour.org/related/adobe.htm Adobe Brick Making Today media type="youtube" key="CNFfAa1sLls" width="560" height="315"