Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/327

Rh latter. In Italy the houses are left to take their chances. In South America, where much exposed to earthquakes, they are built of only one story, or of bamboo and ropes, similarly to the Japanese plan. One of the safest houses for an earthquake country would probably be a one-storied, strongly framed timber house, with a light, flattish roof,



made of shingles or sheet-iron, the whole resting on a quantity of small cast-iron balls carried on flat plates bedded in the foundations. The chimneys might be made of sheet-iron, carried through holes free of the roof. The ornamentation ought to be of light materials. The nature of the ground on which the house is built does not always



appear to be in itself a matter of prime moment. Its relations with other foundations are more important. In some places solid strata, in others soft strata, appear to afford the more favorable situations; and the superiority of either probably depends on a variety of local circumstances. Places near the junction of the two kinds of