Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/247

Rh should be added to the structure, thus wisely adding to its security. There was a hut for every family, with a trap-door giving access to the lake beneath. The small children were tied by the foot with a string, lest they should fall into the water.

Hassenfratz took some trouble to ascertain the actual form of the huts of savage tribes of our time. In his book on carpentry he gives thirty-three specimens, of which, however, only sixteen or eighteen were copied from existing habitations, the remainder being derived from detailed descriptions of travelers. The pyramidal form, as the simplest, is that generally adopted by the more barbarous tribes, which fact gives good ground for conjecture that this style of building is the oldest of all. Usually the plan is oblong, though sometimes circular, and the roof is either angular or curved, according as stiff or pliant woods were at hand. In the African kraals and similar huts, flexible pieces of wood are bent into a semicircle, and the ends fixed into the ground. Other huts resemble pig-sties, rabbit-bins, and chicken-houses. The Siamese elevate the floor of their cabins some feet above the ground for protection from the damp, and the summer huts of the Kamtchatdales are built on posts and have for an entrance an inclined piece of timber with rough steps, like those in chicken-houses, leading to the roosting-place. This seems to be the primitive idea of building a staircase.

Chinese structures, when compared with those of less advanced nations, are a token of wonderful progress. The Chinese have had regular carpenters from time immemorial, while, among primitive nations, there is no trace of classification of workmen into distinct trades. A species of bamboo is much used by the Chinese; the inner part of this wood being spongy, it is practically a cylinder which does not admit of squaring, but is strong, hard, and durable. The skill of the Chinese carpenters is chiefly demonstrated by their light and elegant bridges, and, if we mistake not, the first idea of suspension-bridges was borrowed from them.

Among no nations of civilized antiquity did carpentry attain so high a development as among the Persians, the Hebrews, and the Phoenicians. With these nations joinery, in the proper acceptation of the word, may be said to have begun, and the progress that this step marked in art is more easily imagined than described. Whatever be the credit accorded to the book of Genesis, it will always remain the most authentic record of the Hebrew nation in Moses's times. The account therein found of the ark is very important in connection with ship-building: if we reflect that the proportions of the ark have been nearly the same as those of modern ship-building, up to the time of the application of iron and steam to navigation, their skill can not but command admiration. From its resemblance to a house, it may also be safely inferred that Hebrew dwellings were divided into stories and rooms and had a sloping roof, which, upon the whole, is essentially the