, or the
log-cabin will be little better than a log-cage. It requires a great many
logs to make a hut; for, supposing the walls to be 8 feet high, and the
trees to average 8 inches in diameter, twelve trees would be required to
build up one side, or forty-eight for all four walls. Other timber would
also be wanted for the roof.
Underground Huts are used in all quarters of the globe. The experience of
our troops when encamped before Sebastopol during an inclement season
told strongly in their favour. Their timely adoption was the salvation of
the British army. They are essentially, nothing else than holes in the
ground, roofed over, fig. 1.
[Sketch of roof and geometrical measure].
The shape and size of the hole corresponds to that of the roof it may be
possible to procure for it; its depth is no greater than requisite for
sitting or standing. If the roof has a pitch of 2 feet in the middle, the
depth of the hole need not exceed 4 1/2 feet. In the Crimea, the holes
were rectangular, and were roofed like huts.
Where there is a steep hillside, a a', fig. 2, an underground hut, b, is
easily contrived; because branches laid over its top, along the surface
of the ground, have sufficient pitch to throw off the rain. Of course the
earth must be removed from a', at the place intended for the doorway.
Reed Huts.--The reed huts of the Affej Arabs, and other inhabitants of
the Chaldean marshes, are shaped like wagon-roofs, and are constructed of
semicircular ribs of reeds, planted in the ground, one behind the other,
at equal distances apart; each rib being a faggot of reeds of 2 feet in
diameter.
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