Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/667

 order not to weaken the uprights by the mortises. From these beams run short supports to the horizontal rafters above.

The roof, if it be of tile or thatch, represents a massive weight—the tiles being thick and quite heavy, and always bedded in a thick



layer of mud. The thatch, though not so heavy, often becomes so after a long rain. The roof-framing, consequently, has oftentimes to support a great weight; and, though in its structure looking weak, or at least primitive in design, yet experience must have taught the Japanese



carpenters that their methods were not only the simplest and most economical, but that they answered all requirements. One is amazed to see how many firemen can gather upon such a roof without its yielding. I have seen massive house-roofs over two hundred years