When all the timbers have been laid out on the ground, the position of each one of the five butts is marked by a stone or in some other convenient way, but great care must be exercised to have the doorway timbers point exactly to the east.  Sometimes measurements are made without placing the timbers on the site, their positions and lengths being determined by the use of a long sapling.  The interior area being thus approximated, all the timbers are removed, and, guided only by the eye, a rough circle is laid out, well within the area previously marked.  The ground within this circle is then scraped and dug out until a fairly level floor is obtained, leaving a low bench of earth entirely or partly around the interior.  This bench is sometimes as much as a foot and a half high on the high side of a slightly sloping site, but ordinarily it is less than a foot.  The object of this excavation is twofold—­to make a level floor with a corresponding increase in the height of the structure, and to afford a bench on which the many small articles constituting the domestic paraphernalia can be set aside and thus avoid littering the floor.

The north and south timbers are the first to be placed, and each is handled by a number of men, usually four or five, who set the butt ends firmly in the ground on opposite sides at the points previously marked and lower the timbers to a slanting position until the forks lock together.  While some of the men hold these timbers in place others set the west timber on the western side of the circle, placing it in such a position and in such a manner that its fork receives the other two and the whole structure is bound together at the top.  The forked apex of the frame is 6 to 8 feet above the ground in ordinary hogans, but on the high plateaus and among the pine forests in the mountain districts hogans of this type, but intended for ceremonial purposes, are sometimes constructed with an interior height of 10 or 11 feet, and inclose an area 25 to 30 feet in diameter.  Following is a list of measurements of four typical hogans: 

Measurements of typical hogans

+-------+-------+-------+-------+
|Ft. in.|Ft. in.|Ft. in.|Ft. in.|
+-----------------+---------------+-------+-------+-------+-

------+
|Door frame       |Height         | 3   8 | 4   0 | 4   0 | 3   6 |
|                 |Width          | 3   8 | 1   8 | 1   6 | 1   9 |
+-----------------+---------------+-------+-------+-------+-

------+
|Interior         |North & south  |17  10 |12   8 |14   9 |14   5 |
|                 |East & west    |18   0 |12   0 |15   0 |14   0 |
+-----------------+---------------+-------+-------+-------+-

------+
|Height under apex                | 7   9 | 6   6 | 7   0 | 6   9 |
+-----------------+---------------+-------+-------+-------+-

------+
|Smoke hole       |Width at apex  | 1  10 | Very  | 1   2 | 1  10 |
|                 |Width at base  | 3   0 | irre- | 2   4 | 2  10 |
|                 |Length         | 3  10 | gular | 3   0 | 3   0 |