Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/125

 barracks and hospitals are all of the most spacious size, with walls of brick and mortar, floors of tiles or flags of stone, or of a composition of mortar and brick dust, beat up when wet into a consistence as hard as stone, called ; the roofs flat, and made of the same material—puckah—sometimes tiled and sometimes thatched. The consumption of timber in such buildings is enormous, requiring a whole forest of saul and teak; and the destruction by the white-ant is so great and so rapid that annual surveys to detect their ravages, annual withdrawal of beams, and substitution of new ones are necessary; thus entailing an immense expense to Government that might be avoided.

When making a recent tour in Palestine where timber fit for building is unknown, I was struck with the ease and economy with which the roofs of houses were arched over with pottery—little conical pots, about six inches long and two to three inches in diameter, being used in the construction of the arches, and covered over with puckah and made waterproof.

It struck me that the roofs of all houses in India ought to be constructed of such materials; they would be impregnable to the white-ants. Good clay is everywhere abundant. The original construction would be much less than buildings of timber roofs and the annual repairs