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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cottage Building in Cob, Pisé, Chalk and
+Clay, by Clough Williams-Ellis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Cottage Building in Cob, Pisé, Chalk and Clay
+       a Renaissance (2nd edition)
+
+Author: Clough Williams-Ellis
+
+Commentator: J. St. Loe Strachey
+
+Release Date: April 19, 2010 [EBook #32048]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COTTAGE BUILDING IN COB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Louise Hope, David Clarke and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[This is the ASCII or "rock-bottom" version of the text for people whose
+text readers cannot handle the "real" (Unicode, UTF-8) or even the
+simplified Latin-1 version. Differences include:
+
+  --the "oe" and "ae" ligatures are each two letters
+  --all fractions are written out as 1/2, 1/4...
+  --the word "Pise" is missing its accent
+  --a few symbols such as the "Section" and "Pound" (currency) signs
+    have had to be shown in an alternative form
+
+In illustration captions, small capitals are shown as +text+; in the
+advertising, the +same symbols+ represent boldface.
+
+Headers of odd-numbered pages changed from page to page. These have been
+marked as [Headnote] and are added to the Table of Contents in brackets
+to aid in text searching.
+
+In the body text, _s._ and _d._ (shillings and pence) were always
+italicized; in the advertising, all prices were printed in boldface.
+Both have been left unmarked to reduce visual clutter.
+
+Errors and other problems are listed at the end of the e-text.]
+
+
+
+
+  COTTAGE BUILDING IN
+  COB, PISE, CHALK & CLAY
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Publisher's Device {COUNTRY LIFE}]
+
+  _First Edition, September 1919_
+  _Second Edition (Revised and Enlarged), July 1920_
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Cob House built by Mr. Ernest Gimson,
+  near Budleigh Salterton, Devon.+
+  _Frontispiece_]
+
+
+
+
+  COTTAGE BUILDING
+
+    in
+
+  COB, PISE, CHALK & CLAY
+
+  _A Renaissance_
+
+
+    By
+  CLOUGH WILLIAMS-ELLIS
+
+  _With An Introduction_
+    By
+  J. St. LOE STRACHEY
+
+
+  Second Edition
+  Revised And Enlarged
+
+
+    London
+  Published at the Offices of "Country Life," 20,
+  Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, W.C.2, and by
+  George Newnes, Ltd., 8-11, Southampton Street,
+  Strand, W.C.2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
+    MCMXX
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
+
+
+The exhaustion of the first edition of this book, within so short a time
+of its publication, makes it difficult to add much new matter for the
+reissue now called for, or, in the light of subsequent research and
+experience, to revise what had already been written.
+
+Any book that seemed to show a way of meeting the present building
+difficulties, however partially, was fairly assured of a welcome, but
+the somewhat unforeseen demand for my small contribution to the great
+volume of literature on cottage-building is, I think, to be attributed
+chiefly to its description of Pise-building.
+
+Of the very large number of letters that reach me from readers of the
+book, quite ninety-nine out of every hundred are concerned with Pise.
+
+The other methods of building have their advocates and exponents, but it
+is clearly Pise that has caught the attention of the public as well as
+of the Press both at home and abroad, and it is to this method of
+construction that I have chiefly devoted my attention since the writing
+of the book as it first appeared.
+
+In our English climate Pise-building is a summer craft, and the
+small-scale experiments of one person through a single summer cannot in
+the nature of things add very greatly to the sum of our knowledge of
+what is possible with Pise and of what is not.
+
+Most of the new data have come through the building of Mr. Strachey's
+demonstration house, an account of which is included in the present
+volume.
+
+At the time of writing, various tests are being carried out with the
+help of the National Physical Laboratory; but the results, though
+exceedingly encouraging, are not yet ready for publication.[1]
+
+The fact that Pise-building is essentially a "Dry-earth method" makes
+necessary the creation of artificial summer conditions under which the
+experiments may be conducted during the past winter. As a result of
+these researches, a considerable mass of useful data has become
+available for the opening of the present building season.[2]
+
+Much helpful information is also likely to come to us from the Colonies,
+particularly from Rhodesia and British East Africa, where there is great
+activity in Pise-building, and where there is no "close season" such as
+our winter imposes upon us here.
+
+It is instructive also to note that great interest in Pise-building has
+been aroused in Canada and in Scandinavia, the two countries that we
+were wont to associate particularly with timber-building.
+
+From both I have received a number of letters complaining of "the lumber
+shortage," and discussing the advantages of Pise as compared with their
+traditional wood-construction.
+
+If these great timber countries are themselves feeling the pinch, the
+advocates of wooden houses for England may find that they are not merely
+barking up the wrong tree, but up a tree that is not even there.
+
+The timber famine is, in any case, a calamity to anyone dependent on
+building, that is to everyone, for even a Pise house must still have a
+roof and floors and joinery.
+
+But to invoke the timber house as our salvation under existing
+conditions seems to be singularly perverse and unhelpful. Pise, at all
+events, seems to offer us a more promising field for exploration than
+most of the other heterodox methods of construction that have been
+suggested, too often upon credentials that will not bear any but the
+most cursory scrutiny.
+
+Pise, even now, is still in its experimental infancy.
+
+It has yet to prove itself in the fields of National Housing and of
+competitive commercial building schemes on a large scale.
+
+Lastly, Pise does not claim to solve the housing problem. There is no
+solution unless, by some miracle, the present purchasing power of the
+sovereign appreciates by 200 per cent.
+
+    CLOUGH WILLIAMS-ELLIS.
+
+  22, South Eaton Place,
+  London, S.W.1.
+  _May 1920._
+
+
+    [Footnote 1: Certain of these have since been issued and will
+    be found in Appendix IV. at the end of the book.]
+
+    [Footnote 2: See Appendix IV.]
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+  [Text shown in brackets was taken from headnotes and added here
+  by the transcriber.]
+
+                                                            Page
+
+  INTRODUCTION                                                11
+    [The Search for Cheap Material -- Experiments with
+    "Pise" -- Rammed Chalk, "Pise de Craie" -- Pise in
+    Moulds -- Cob and Chalk -- Pise--a South African
+    Lead -- The Discovery of the Old]
+
+  GENERAL SURVEY                                              26
+    [The House Famine -- Local Materials]
+
+  I. COB                                                      33
+    [The Beauty of Cob -- Method of Building --
+    Implements -- Walls and Roofs -- Protection --
+    Raleigh's House -- Mr. Baring-Gould -- Old Cob Lore
+    -- Mr. Fulford's Evidence -- A Champion of Cob]
+
+  II. PISE DE TERRE                                           57
+    [Method of Building -- The Ramming -- Suitable Soils
+    -- Experiments -- Preparation of the Earth -- The
+    Strength of Pise -- A Pise Church -- Indian and
+    Colonial Practice -- Plastering -- The Right
+    Quantity of Water -- Pise Buildings at Empandeni --
+    Pise Buildings for Settlers -- Builders' Aversions
+    -- Number of Men Required -- Pise in New Zealand --
+    Pise Shuttering -- If Reason Rule -- The Newlands
+    Specification -- A Swedish Contribution --
+    A Pise-Builder's School -- Alternative Shutterings
+    -- South Africa -- Soils]
+
+  III. CHALK                                                 107
+    [Winter Work Barred -- Garden Walls -- Cost of Three
+    Cottages -- Expensive Scaffolding Avoided -- Block
+    Chalk]
+
+  IV. UNBURNED CLAY AND EARTH BRICKS                         121
+    [Use for Unskilled Labour -- "Substantial and Cool"]
+
+  APPENDIX                                                   127
+    [Distempers and Limewashes -- Local Materials --
+    Cost per Foot Cube -- Pise Tests]
+
+  INDEX                                                      139
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  COB HOUSE BUILT BY MR. ERNEST GIMSON,
+      NEAR BUDLEIGH SALTERTON, DEVON               _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                     Facing Page
+  PISE WAGGON-HOUSE AT NEWLANDS CORNER                        18
+  THE NEWLANDS WAGGON-HOUSE (INTERIOR)                        18
+  THE BEGINNING OF A PISE FRUIT-HOUSE                         19
+  THE FRUIT-HOUSE COMPLETED WITH ROOF OF PEAT BLOCKS
+      ON ROUGH BOARDING                                       19
+  MODEL OF A PISE DE TERRE HOUSE TO BE BUILT IN
+      THREE SUCCESSIVE STAGES                                 22
+  WAYSIDE STATION OF PISE AT SIMONDIUM, SOUTH AFRICA,
+      DESIGNED BY MR. HERBERT BAKER                           23
+  FRONT AND BACK ELEVATIONS OF COTTAGE DESIGNED BY
+      SIR EDWIN LUTYENS AND MR. ALBAN SCOTT                   28
+  PLAN OF COTTAGE DESIGNED BY SIR EDWIN LUTYENS
+      AND MR. ALBAN SCOTT                                     29
+  ANOTHER VIEW OF THE COB HOUSE BUILT BY MR.
+      ERNEST GIMSON, NEAR BUDLEIGH SALTERTON, DEVON           34
+  A FINE SPECIMEN OF A DEVONSHIRE COB HOUSE                   35
+  A DEVONSHIRE COB FARMHOUSE, PROBABLY BETWEEN
+      200 AND 300 YEARS OLD                                   36
+  A COB-BUILT VILLAGE                                         37
+  A DEVONSHIRE FARM, LOCAL MATERIAL (COB)                     42
+  DEVON COUNTRY HOUSE, BUILT OF DEVON COB                     43
+  COB HOUSE TEMP. ELIZABETH, LEWISHILL                        44
+  ANOTHER DEVONSHIRE (COB) FARMHOUSE, WEEKE BARTON            45
+  CEILINGS OF MODELLED PLASTER FROM OLD COB HOUSES IN DEVON   46
+  A COB GARDEN-WALL WITH THATCHED COPING                      47
+  PISE PLANT AND IMPLEMENTS                                   58
+  DIAGRAM OF MARK V PISE SHUTTERING                           88
+  MARK V SHUTTERING                                           89
+  A SIMPLE MOULD FOR PISE BLOCKS                              90
+  BLOCK-MOULDS, LARGE AND SMALL                               90
+  SKETCH OF A PISE HOUSE IN COURSE OF ERECTION                91
+  THE NEWLANDS CORNER BUILDING                                92
+  THE COTTAGE FROM THE SOUTH-EAST                             93
+  THE GARDEN COURT                                            93
+  THE BACKYARD                                                94
+  FRAMING THE ROOF                                            95
+  AN INTERIOR, SHOWING FIRE-BRICK HEARTH FIRE                 95
+  DETAILS OF CHALK CONSTRUCTION AT AMESBURY                  110
+  COTTAGES AT COLDHARBOUR, AMESBURY                          111
+  THREE CHALK COTTAGES AT HURSLEY PARK                       114
+  MARSH COURT, HAMPSHIRE                                     116
+  BRICK-AND-CHALK VAULTING AT THE DEANERY GARDEN, SONNING    117
+  ONCE CORN HALL, NOW COUNCIL SCHOOL                         122
+  A ROW OF CLAY-LUMP COTTAGES                                122
+  ENGINEERING WORKSHOPS                                      123
+
+
+
+
+CONSIDERATIONS
+
+
+  "IF ALL AVAILABLE BRICKWORKS WERE TO PRODUCE AT THEIR HIGHEST LIMIT
+  OF OUTPUT AND WITH ALL THE LABOUR THEY WANTED AT THEIR DISPOSAL THEY
+  COULD ONLY TURN OUT 4,000,000,000 BRICKS IN A YEAR AS AGAINST A
+  PRE-WAR AVERAGE OF 2,800,000,000."--(_See Report by Committee
+  appointed by Ministry of Reconstruction to consider the post-war
+  position of building._)
+
+  The first year's programme of working-class housing _alone_ calls
+  for at least 6,000,000,000 bricks. That is to say, unless wall
+  materials other than brick are freely used, we shall fall alarmingly
+  short of what the population of Great Britain needs in bare
+  accommodation, and all building and engineering projects whatsoever
+  other than housing must be postponed indefinitely.
+
+  "THE COUNTRY DISTRICTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES ARE UNSURPASSED FOR
+  VARIETY AND BEAUTY OF CHARACTER, AND IT WOULD BE NOTHING LESS THAN A
+  NATIONAL MISFORTUNE IF THE INCREASED DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL HOLDINGS
+  WERE TO RESULT IN THE ERECTION OF BUILDINGS UNSUITED TO THEIR
+  ENVIRONMENT AND UGLY IN APPEARANCE."--(_Extract from the report
+  submitted by the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire as to
+  Buildings for Small Holdings, 1913._)
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+  I
+
+The country is faced by a dilemma probably greater and more poignant
+than any with which it has hitherto had to deal. It needs, and needs at
+once, a million new houses, and it has not only utterly inadequate
+stores of material with which to build them, but has not even the plant
+by which that material can be rapidly created. There is not merely a
+shortage, but an actual famine everywhere as regards the things out of
+which houses are made. Bricks are wanted by the ten thousand million,
+but there are practically no bricks in sight. All that the brickyards of
+the United Kingdom can do, working all day and every day, is to turn out
+something like four thousand million a year. But to those who want
+houses at once, what is the use of a promise of bricks in five years'
+time? To tell them to turn to the stone quarries is a mere derision. Let
+alone the cost of work and of transport, it is only in a few favoured
+places that the rocks will give us what we want. Needless to say we are
+short, too, of lime and cement, and probably shall be shorter. _No coal,
+no quicklime_, and _No coal, no cement_, and as things look now, it is
+going to be a case, if not of no coal, at any rate of much less coal.
+Even worse is the shortage in timber--the material hitherto deemed
+essential for the making of roofs, doors, windows and floors. Raw timber
+is hardly obtainable, and seasoned timber does not exist. The same story
+has to be told about tiles, slates, corrugated iron, and every other
+form of "legitimate" roofing substance. There are none to be had.
+
+In this dread predicament what are we to do as a nation? What we must
+not do is at any rate quite clear. We must not lie down in the high road
+of civilisation and cry out that we are ruined or betrayed, or that the
+world is too hard for us, and that we must give up the task of living in
+houses. Whether we like it or not we have got to do something about the
+housing question, and we have got to do it at once, and there is an end.
+Translated into terms of action, this means that as we have not got
+enough of the old forms of material we must turn to others and learn how
+to house ourselves with materials such as we have not used before. Once
+again necessity must be the mother of invention, or rather, of invention
+and revival, for in anything so old and universal as the housing problem
+it is too late to be ambitious. Here we always find that there has been
+an ancient Assyrian or Egyptian or a primitive man in front of us.
+
+It is the object of the present book to attack part of the problem of
+how to build without bricks, and indeed without mortar, and equally
+important, as far as possible without the vast cost of transporting the
+heavy material of the house from one quarter of England to another. That
+is my apology for introducing to the public a work dealing with what I
+can hear old-fashioned master-builders describing as the "bastard" forms
+of construction. One of these is Pise de terre, the old system of
+building with walls formed of rammed or compressed earth: a system which
+was once known throughout Europe and of which the primitive tribesmen of
+Arizona and New Mexico knew the secret. Down to our own day it has been
+practised with wonderful success in the Valley of the Rhone. Then come
+our own cob, once the cottage material _par excellence_ of Devonshire
+and the West of England, our system of building with plain clay blocks,
+a plan indigenous in the Eastern counties, and again the use of chalk
+and chalk pise.
+
+
+    [Headnote: The Search for Cheap Material]
+
+  PISE DE TERRE
+
+For me Pise de terre, ever since I heard of it, has offered special
+attractions. It, and it alone provides, or if one must be cautious,
+appears to provide the way to turn an old dream of mine and of many
+other people into a reality. My connection with the problem of housing,
+and especially of rural housing, _i.e._ cottage housing, now nearly a
+quarter of a century old, has been on the side of cheap material.
+Rightly or wrongly (I know that many great experts in building matters
+think quite wrongly), I have had the simplicity to believe that if you
+are to get cheap housing you must get it by the use of cheap material.
+It has always seemed to me that there is no other way. What more natural
+than first to ask why building material was so dear, and then what was
+the cause of its dearness? I found it in the fact that bricks are very
+expensive things to make, that stones are very expensive things to
+quarry, that cements are very expensive things to manufacture, and worst
+of all, that all these things are very heavy and very expensive to drag
+about the country, and to "dump" on the site in some lonely situation
+where cottages or a small-holder's house and outbuildings are, to use
+the conventional phrase, "urgently demanded." Therefore, to the
+unfeigned amusement, nay, contempt of all my architectural friends,
+I spent a great deal of my leisure in the years before the war in
+racking my brains in the search for cheap material. My deep desire was
+to find something in the earth out of which walls could be made. My
+ideal was a man or group of men with spades and pickaxes coming upon the
+land and creating the walls of a house out of what they found there.
+I wanted my house, my cottage in "Cloud-Cuckoo Land," to rise like the
+lark from the furrows. But I was at once dissuaded from my purpose by
+cautious and scientific persons. The chemists, if they did not scoff
+like the architects, were visibly perturbed. "Your dream is impossible,"
+they said. "Nature abhors it as much as she used to be supposed to abhor
+a vacuum. If your soil is clay, and you can afford the time and cost of
+erecting kilns, and bringing coal to the spot to make the bricks, you
+can no doubt turn the earth on the spot into a house, but even then you
+had far better buy them of those that sell. Your dream of having some
+chemical which will mix with the earth and turn it into a kind of stone,
+is the merest delusion. It is the nature of the earth to kill anything
+in the way of cement that is mixed with it. For example, even a little
+earth will kill concrete or mortar. Unless you wash your sand most
+carefully, and free it from all earth stain, you will ruin your concrete
+blocks." I appeared to be literally "up against" a brick wall. It was
+that or nothing. And then, and when things seemed at their very worst,
+a kind correspondent of _The Spectator_ showed me a way of escape.
+I felt like a man lost in underground passages who suddenly sees a tiny
+square of light and knows that it means the way out. Somebody wrote,
+from South Africa I think, asking why I didn't find the thing I wanted
+in Pise de terre, much used in Australia, and occasionally in Cape
+Colony. Then came a rush of enlightenment. People who had seen and even
+lived in such houses wrote to _The Spectator_, and the world indeed for
+the moment seemed alive with Pise de terre. I was even lent the
+"Farmer's Handbook" of New South Wales, in which the State Government
+provides settlers with an elaborate description of how to build in Pise,
+and how to make the necessary shuttering for doing so. It was then, too,
+that I began to hear of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century buildings
+of Pise in the Rhone Valley. In fact, everybody but I seemed to know all
+there was to be known about Pise de terre. For the moment indeed, the
+situation seemed like that described in _Punch's_ famous picture of the
+young lady and the German professor. "_What is Volapuk?_" asks the young
+lady. "_Ze universal language_," says the professor. "_Where is it
+spoken?_" "_No vairs._" Pise de terre appeared to be the universal
+system of building, but as far as I could make out, it was practised "no
+vairs," or at any rate not in Europe.
+
+
+    [Headnote: Experiments with "Pise"]
+
+  II
+
+I had got as far as the position described above, when down swept the
+war upon Europe, and everything had to be postponed in favour of the
+immediate need of filling the ranks of the nation's army and teaching
+the men how to fight our enemies. As the war went on, however, the
+demand for rapid, cheap, and temporary building became very great, and I
+felt I should be justified in trying some experiments with Pise de
+terre, even in spite of the difficulty of obtaining labour.
+
+I think I can best illustrate the nature of Pise and what it can do, and
+I believe will do, if I shortly recount in chronological order these
+humble pioneer efforts.
+
+In the summer of 1915 I found that it was necessary in the interests of
+the hospital established in my house to find a place in which to store
+apples, for the men in blue consumed them in incredible quantities.
+I thought I would try Pise. Accordingly, I had some shuttering made on
+the Australian model--not splendid scientific shuttering such as is
+described in the body of this work, but still shuttering quite
+sufficient for the purpose. With great rapidity a little fruit-house was
+put up, roofed with boards, and covered with blocks of compressed peat
+in order to make a roof which would be both vermin-proof and also keep
+out the heat and the frost. In my ignorance and my hurry, I now find
+that I violated every sound rule of Pise construction. I built the walls
+during a week of rain, when the earth was wet, which was a great
+mistake; and I did not clear out the stones, which was another error
+that prevented the walls from being homogeneous. Worst of all, as soon
+as the walls were built (and very pretty walls they were, looking
+something like soft brown marble), I painted them over with tar, which
+of course would not enter the wet wall, but only made a skin, which in a
+few months peeled off exactly like the bark off a plane tree. Yet in
+spite of this ignorant mishandling of my material, the little
+fruit-house is still standing and sheltered till January the few apples
+Nature allowed us to gather last autumn. It looks disreputable, but
+there has been no structural collapse, nor will there be.
+
+    [Headnote: Rammed Chalk, "Pise de Craie"]
+
+No sooner was the fruit-house finished than I was met by the demand of
+my wife, the commandant of the hospital, to add to my house a patients'
+dining-room, which would be bright, dry, airy, warm, and comfortable,
+and be large enough for forty men to have their meals in, and to use as
+a sitting-room during the rest of the day. The local builder said that
+it was impossible to make a wooden addition, for there was no wood to be
+procured, or to build in bricks, since my house stands 600 ft. above the
+sea on an isolated chalk down. Croesus would have found it difficult at
+that time to build on my site, and for the ordinary economic
+man--"L'homme a quarantes ecus"--it was quite impossible. But the room
+had got to be built, for the men were there, and built at once, since
+the out-of-door life of July and August could not continue. There was
+nothing to do but to fall back upon Pise. I decided to be ambitious and
+to experiment, not merely in Pise de terre, but in what I then
+thought--and perhaps rightly--was a new form of Pise, _i.e._ Pise de
+craie or compressed chalk. My shuttering therefore was put up. A hole
+not very far off was dug in the earth, the chalk which was almost at the
+surface was quarried out, and we began to build the wall, candid and
+contemptuous friends telling us of course that the chalk wall would
+never stand the frosts in so exposed a position, and that the wall, if
+made, would certainly explode! Everyone worked at that wall; the nursing
+staff, the coachman, an occasional visitor, a schoolboy, a couple of boy
+scouts, members of the National Reserve who were guarding a "vulnerable
+point" close by, and even some of the patients. Patients as a rule will
+endure any toil with the utmost good temper if it is for the purposes of
+sport. If the task is useful it does not interest them. Still, a wall
+which might explode offered a certain attraction. We worked with more
+zeal than discretion, but happily I had it in my mind that homogeneity
+was the essential, and therefore the hard nuggets of chalk as they were
+thrown into the shuttering to be compressed by the rammers were first
+chopped up with spades, much as one minces meat. The wall had no
+foundations. In Pise you can make your foundations, so to speak, as you
+go, through the simple process of ramming. Anyway, and to cut a long
+story short, the wall was made, was able to receive the roof, for which
+happily the local builder found some material, and not only did the wall
+stand, but showed a very creditable exterior. Its weight was of course
+enormous, for there were some twenty tons of chalk put into it. In spite
+of the irregularity of the labour it did not take more than ten or
+twelve days to build. To prevent the wet and frost getting into it,
+I painted the main front with a patent liquid material for rendering
+walls damp-proof. The Chalk Pise wall not only served its purpose, but
+served it very well. The room proved extraordinarily warm and
+comfortable, largely owing no doubt to the fact of a solid, very dry,
+18-in. wall on the north-east side.
+
+
+  III
+
+My next venture was in response to an urgent appeal from a farm tenant
+to build him a waggon house. The result is seen in the accompanying
+illustration. This building, about 40 ft. by 30 ft., was made purely of
+earth, but some experiments were tried in the way of introducing hurdles
+into the shuttering in order to afford a surface to which plaster could
+easily cling. Suffice it to say that the plain earth, without plaster or
+any covering, more than justified itself. One part of the wall is very
+much exposed to the weather, but it has stood the rains and the frosts
+of three very bad winters without turning a hair. Lovers of the
+picturesque may like to know that it presents a pleasant face of light
+ochre, upon which a pale green efflorescence of lichen has appeared of
+late. Anyway, the frost has not touched it.
+
+
+  IV
+
+Next I made some experiments in chalk farmyard walls. Unfortunately,
+however, one of these, which was not made homogeneous by chalk mincing,
+_i.e._ in which the nuggets of chalk were not properly broken up, got
+the wet into it, and true to the candid friend's prophecy did literally
+explode in the big frost of 1917-18. Another very pretty chalk wall is,
+however, standing to this day. But though Chalk Pise will, I think, do
+well if properly made and properly protected, it is somewhat of a
+doubtful material for anything except a building with a good overlay of
+roof. Another structure put up by me was a largish gardener's potting
+shed. This was built purely of earth, and in dry weather. When the walls
+were perfectly dry, the local road authorities kindly came with their
+tar spray and sprayed it with hot tar, with most excellent results. The
+hot tar really entered instead of merely making a skin, with the result
+that the external walls thus treated resembled a section of tarred road
+stood up on end.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Pise Waggon-house at Newlands Corner.+
+  An experiment in rendering.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +The Newlands Waggon-house.+
+  Interior.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +The Beginning of a Pise Fruit-house.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +The Fruit-house Completed With Roof of Peat Blocks
+  on Rough Boarding.+]
+
+I may add that I lent my Pise shuttering to a Guildford Volunteer
+Battalion, who in a ten-hour day, or rather, two days of five hours
+each, built an excellent hut about 20 ft. square and 10 ft. high, and
+thus showed that a platoon might house themselves with Pise in a day,
+provided they had roofing material ready. This building had subsequently
+to be destroyed, because the ground on which it stood was wanted for
+another purpose. When it was knocked down the house-breakers were
+astonished at the strength and tenacity of the walls. Yet the earth out
+of which they were made was particularly bad--as one of the volunteers
+expressed it, not earth, but merely leaf-mould and horse-manure. The
+site had, as a matter of fact, been a suburban garden for at least two
+hundred years.
+
+
+  V
+
+Before I leave the record of these terrestrial adventures I may note
+that in the early stages I received a great deal of help and
+encouragement from General Sir Robert Scott-Moncrieff. He was indeed so
+much struck by them that he drew up a series of instructions for walls
+of Pise work which were issued to all engineer companies at the front in
+case they might have opportunities for experimenting. These instructions
+were based upon the Australian book and embodied the very simple form of
+shuttering there recommended. The diagram that accompanied them is
+reproduced in the Appendix to the present volume.
+
+
+    [Headnote: Pise in Moulds]
+
+  VI
+
+  PISE IN MOULDS
+
+There is one thing more to be said about Pise. I believe that a useful
+development of the system may be found in the plan of ramming earth into
+moulds and making earth blocks, something like concrete blocks. Moulds
+of this kind are easy to make and are specially suitable when the soil
+is somewhat clayey in its nature. They have the advantage of being much
+cheaper than shuttering, and of being capable of being handled by one
+man without assistance. With a strong wooden mould and a good rammer a
+small-holder may easily build his own pigsty, his own chicken house, and
+all the small outbuildings he requires, if not indeed add an extra room
+to his house. I am at present experimenting with these blocks and only
+yesterday had the pleasure of seeing a sergeant (R.A.M.C), discharged
+through ill-health and now trying to turn himself into a small-holder,
+building a pigsty with the help of one of my moulds.
+
+
+  VII
+
+_Apropos_ of the elusive universality and yet non-existence of Pise
+work, the following personal anecdote or footnote to compressed earth
+may amuse my readers. Happening to be sleeping in a bedroom at Brooks's
+Club in 1916, I noticed a charming Regency bookcase full of old books.
+Among them was a copy of a _Cyclopaedia_ of 1819. I thought it would be
+amusing to see whether there was any mention of Pise de terre. What was
+my astonishment to find that what I thought was my own special and
+peculiar hobby and discovery was treated therein at very great length
+and with very great ability, but treated not in the least as anything
+new or wonderful, but instead as "this well-known and greatly
+appreciated system of building, etc., etc." To complete the irony of the
+situation the fact was mentioned that a Mr. Holland had lately sent to
+the Board of Agriculture a memorandum as to how to put up houses and
+farm-buildings in this form of construction. My hair rose on my head,
+for I had just committed a similar official indiscretion myself, and had
+been bombarding appropriate authorities with what I thought must be a
+complete novelty. Truly one can never be first or do anything new. It is
+always "in the Files," as Mr. Kipling says. Even in our most original
+moments we only keep on feebly imitating somebody else. The claim to
+originality is nothing but a muddy mixture of pride and ignorance. What
+did, however, somewhat amaze me was the calm statement of the
+_Cyclopaedia_ that this system of building was now well known in the
+counties of--and then came the names of practically all the counties of
+Southern England. And yet I had been keenly on the look-out for such
+buildings for several years. The cynic will say that they had all fallen
+down. That only shows the weakness of the cynic's point of view. The
+truth is they are often concealed under various disguises of plaster,
+paint, and weather tiles. Few people know what their own walls are
+really made of till they try to cut a new opening for a door or a window
+in them.
+
+
+    [Headnote: Cob and Chalk]
+
+  VIII
+
+  COB AND CHALK
+
+Of Cob I know little by actual experiment. It is fully dealt with in the
+body of this work, and readers will find that it is a kind of mud or
+clay concrete reinforced with straw. It is therefore totally and
+absolutely different from Pise. One is wet, the other dry.
+
+All that need be said about chalk is said by the author of the present
+book.
+
+
+  IX
+
+  A POSTSCRIPT
+
+In the body of this work mention is made of a very successful experiment
+in Pise de terre made by the officials of a Rhodesian mining company;
+the outcome, I am proud to think, of my pre-war advocacy of Pise in _The
+Spectator_. No sooner had my introduction been finished than there came
+by way of postscript an exceedingly interesting series of photographs,
+sent to me by Mr. Pickstone, a gentleman very well known in South Africa
+for his fruit gardens, his peaches, and his apricots. On the strength of
+what he had read in _The Spectator_, Mr. Pickstone lately undertook to
+build a station building and station-master's house for the railway
+station at Simondium in the Drakenstein Valley, a place which during the
+summer is noted for its great heat. In the January number of the _South
+African Railways and Harbours Magazine_, Mr. Pickstone gives a detailed
+account of his bold and successful experiment and illustrates it by a
+reproduction of some of his photographs. Here is his own account of what
+he did.
+
+   *   *   *
+
+    [Headnote: Pise--a South African Lead]
+
+"It must have been about eighteen months ago that the railway
+administration decided to promote Simondium Siding to the dignity of a
+station. As a siding, it had always been a busy place in the fruit
+season, during which time a permanent checker had for some years been
+kept quite busy, his accommodation being a couple of small tin shanties,
+and he had been accustomed to board out where he could. Now we were to
+have a 'pukka' station-master and, presumably, suitable premises. The
+department quickly got to work and the station-master's house arrived.
+It was what one might call a second-hand, or even a third- or
+fourth-hand one, consisting of the inevitable sheets of galvanised iron
+and the ever-essential Oregon and Swedish timber. Our new station-master
+also shortly afterwards arrived, and turned out to be a married man with
+a wife and four children. The station-master was not a grouser, but
+during the hot summer--and it is terribly hot in the Drakenstein Valley
+during that time of the year--he complained to me that it was almost
+impossible to hold on, owing to the conditions under which he and his
+family had to live. It was just about this time that I saw in _The
+Spectator_ a series of articles strongly advocating 'Pise de terre'
+construction for buildings of all kinds; especially was it recommended
+as a war-time expedient for rapid and economical construction for
+barracks and hospitals, and, indeed, it was strongly recommended by Mr.
+St. Loe Strachey, the editor, for all sorts of general building and
+military purposes. It is a curious fact, which many readers could
+verify, that frequently one lives one's life under certain conditions,
+and in reality remains absolutely blind to their presence and
+potentialities. Here was I, living in a country where some of the most
+beautiful old homesteads are on the principle of the 'Pise de terre'
+construction, and a large proportion of the older farm buildings in this
+district also built of similar material, with the additional pleasing
+accompaniment of beautiful beams, ceilings and floors made of colonial
+pine--one may advisedly add, the _despised_ colonial pine. Some of these
+buildings have stood the wear and use of close on a century, and are
+still an object of joy to those privileged to have an eye to see. Here
+lived I, as I say, blind to its potentialities for to-day, although it
+had been clearly appreciated and carried out with the most charming and
+solid results by our great-grandfathers in the old slave-labour days."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Model of a Pise de Terre House to be built in
+  Three Successive Stages.+
+  The right wing is planned to be built first as a complete
+  small cottage, eventually becoming service and servants' quarters.
+  _Clough Williams-Ellis, Architect_.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Wayside Station of Pise at Simondium, South Africa,
+  designed by Mr. Herbert Baker.+]
+
+The supervising architect, Mr. Kendall, who was responsible for carrying
+out the work to the admirable design of Mr. Herbert Baker, gives the
+following description of the way the work was actually executed, which
+contains several very useful hints:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+"The construction of walls determined upon was that known as 'Pise de
+terre,' consisting of earth walls some 18 in. to 24 in. thick, which owe
+their solidity to a simple process of ramming between wooden casings
+previously placed in position on both sides. These walls are built in
+stages of some 3 ft. in height, the wood casing being raised at
+intervals as required. The frames for doors and windows are placed in
+position at the right time, and anchored into the walls by means of long
+hoop iron ties. These walls, when completed, give a surface almost as
+hard as burnt brick, but the external angles present a slight point of
+weakness, as from their exposure they would be naturally inclined to
+chip away in cases of rough usage. In order to overcome this it was
+arranged that irregular brick quoins should be embedded in the angles
+all the way up as the work proceeded. The walls, when completed, were
+then plastered and whitewashed, and present as good an appearance as
+more expensively plastered brickwork. As additional security the weather
+sides were given, prior to whitewashing, a coat of hot gas tar direct on
+the plaster, which in all exterior work was lime plus 10 per cent.
+cement. The roofs are of thatch with a fairly good overhang at the eaves
+in order to form a protection for the walls."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+On one point, however, we may reassure Mr. Kendall. I do not think he
+need be afraid of his walls being destroyed by the weather even if he
+has no overhang. Part of a Pise wall in my cart-shed, built in a very
+exposed situation, has no overhang. Further, the wall is not covered by
+cement or any other protective covering. The compressed earth was left
+quite bare, and yet the three worst winters of alternating wet and frost
+known for many years have made no impression upon the wall. It seems to
+be both rain-proof and frost-proof.
+
+I may add that Mr. Pickstone informs me in a letter dated February 19th
+that the Pise walls have proved an enormous success from the point of
+view of protection from the heat. Whereas in an iron building lined with
+wood the temperature in the hot weather went up to 104 degrees
+Fahrenheit, in the station-master's Pise de terre dining-room the
+thermometer registered only 86 degrees. Those who have ever lived where
+such temperatures prevail will note the immense advantage gained by the
+Pise walls. Such temperatures try strong men and women, and for children
+they are positively death-dealing. With so successful an experiment as
+that at Simondium before my eyes, I am beginning to feel that I may live
+to correct my view that this universal system of building is practised
+"no vairs."
+
+
+    [Headnote: The Discovery of the Old]
+
+  X
+
+  PLINY ON PISE DE TERRE
+
+Now for something which I have kept as the _bonne bouche_ of my earthy
+story. At the end of my researches and experiments I found that Pliny
+has got it all in his _Natural History_ in six lines! There is no need
+for more words.
+
+"_Have we not in Africa and in Spain walls of earth, known as
+'formocean' walls? From the fact that they are moulded, rather than
+built, by enclosing earth within a frame of boards, constructed on
+either side. These walls will last for centuries, are proof against
+rain, wind, and fire, and are superior in solidity to any cement. Even
+at this day Spain still holds watch-towers that were erected by
+Hannibal._" --_Pliny's "Natural History,"_ Bk. XXXV, chapter xlviii.
+
+    J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
+
+  Newlands Corner, Surrey.
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL SURVEY
+
+
+Always necessity has been the mother of invention. The war has proved
+her prolific indeed, and her teeming offspring are seen in the
+multiplicity of war contrivances and the bewildering array of
+substitutes for the once common things of our daily life. Where
+necessity has been most dire, there invention has unfailingly come to
+the rescue with the most amazing "Ersatz" products to replace the
+vanished originals.
+
+At any rate it pleases us to attribute the truly astonishing feats of
+the Germans in this direction to their greater need rather than to any
+superior ingenuity or enterprise on their part.
+
+That their success was often no more than moderate will be readily
+admitted by anyone who, for instance, has made trial of their "Ersatz"
+cigars or ration coffee.
+
+Still, need did at least awaken prodigious effort, ingenuity, and
+enterprise--all co-ordinated and concentrated on the business of making
+good a hundred paralysing deficiencies.
+
+    [Headnote: The House Famine]
+
+In this present matter of National Housing the shortage of all the
+generally recognised building materials as well as of actual houses is
+extreme and grave. Effort, ingenuity, and enterprise in overcoming these
+insufficiencies are as urgently and vitally necessary to England in
+Peace as ever they were to Germany in war. Little will be said here of
+the direct and intimate connection between good houses and good
+citizens.
+
+It is assumed that those who go to the pains of reading this book have
+at least glanced at the Housing Reports, and drawn certain disquieting
+conclusions from the criminal and vital statistics with which the case
+for reform is reinforced.
+
+In a recent speech the Registrar-General said: "War does not only fill
+the graves, it also empties the cradles." This is no less true of bad
+and inadequate housing.
+
+Only the most reckless and thick-skinned of the poorer population will
+adventure on marriage and the bringing up of a family whilst the odds
+against decent and reasonable housing persist as at present.
+
+True, "Housing" is very properly being given considerable prominence in
+the press, and scarcely a day passes but there appears an article or
+letter dealing with this question.
+
+Usually we are left but little wiser than we were, whilst if we chance
+to know something about the subject, the general tone of vague
+cheerfulness that pervades them all fills us with misgiving.
+
+Nothing is easier or pleasanter or more popular than to make airy
+promises or predictions about the "Homes for Happy Human Beings" that,
+somehow, are to be prepared for our returned soldiers, and for all those
+others who are housed miserably or not at all. It is very easy to
+predict and promise, but without adequate materials performance is not
+merely difficult, it is impossible.
+
+There is a world-shortage of almost every manufactured or cultivated
+product; there is also a labour famine, a money famine, and a transport
+famine.
+
+In this country, closely connected with these deficiencies and looming
+ominously over them all, is, as we have said, our house-famine.
+
+To relieve the last in face of the others, and without further
+aggravating them, is one of the most grave and pressing of the many
+problems that confront us.
+
+Briefly the problem is this: To provide a maximum of new housing with a
+minimum expenditure of labour, money, transport, and manufactured
+materials.
+
+Broadly speaking, so far as rural housing is concerned, the solution
+must be sought through the use of natural materials already existing on
+the site, materials that can be worked straight into the fabric of the
+building, without any elaborate or costly conversion, and that by local
+labour.
+
+"Pise de Terre," "Chalk Compost," and "Cob" are three alternative forms
+of construction, one of which will usually fulfil the above conditions
+in any given situation.
+
+Despite the somewhat outlandish and high-sounding name of the first, it
+is nothing more than a very old and very simple method of building,
+recently revived through stress of circumstances. The rude technique has
+happily been kept alive and preserved for us in out-of-the-way corners
+of the Continent and in our Colonies. Wherever there is a sufficiency of
+sunshine to effect the necessary drying, there have earth buildings
+arisen and prospered.
+
+"Cob" building needs less introduction, as it is still well understood
+and a living craft in several parts of Great Britain, notably in
+Devonshire and South Wales, where its merits and advantages have been
+recognised apparently from the earliest times.
+
+All those indeed who are familiar with this method of construction are
+fully alive to its virtues, and the same is true of Pise-building, both
+in chalk and earth, and also of clay-lump.
+
+This book, however, is addressed to those who have in the past built
+only with stone, brick, concrete, timber and plaster, etc., and who are
+only now considering a reversion to the more primitive construction here
+described, through the shortage or absolute lack of their former
+materials.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Front and Back Elevations of Cottage designed by Sir Edwin
+  Lutyens and Mr. Alban Scott.+
+  This Cottage can be built in Cob, Pise, Concrete, Stone, or Brick.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Plan of Cottage designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Mr. Alban Scott.+]
+
+It is not so much a question as to whether a Cob or Pise house is
+preferable to one of brick or stone or concrete--though there are many
+who profess a lively preference for the former--but as to whether you
+will boldly revert to these old and well-tried methods of building, or,
+in the absence of the ordinary materials, feebly sit down and build
+nothing at all.
+
+For that will, inevitably, be the alternative for a great many private
+persons. National and Public-Utility Housing Schemes and public and
+industrial works of all sorts will naturally and properly claim priority
+in the matter of all building materials--and the private individual, so
+far as he can secure such materials at all, will only do so at a price
+that is the logical outcome of an unprecedented demand and an ominously
+inadequate supply.
+
+    [Headnote: Local Materials]
+
+Timber, tiles, slates, plaster, and ironmongery he must still purchase
+and transport as best he may--but the shell of his house, its outer
+walls at least, could and should be raised from the soil of the site
+itself by the employment of the simplest gear and a small amount of
+unskilled local labour.
+
+So acute indeed is the transport problem, and so small is the hope of
+any substantial improvement in the near future, that any expedient
+tending to ease matters in this respect is worthy of the most serious
+attention.
+
+The restrictions imposed by high freights will of themselves tend to
+check the often senseless and unnecessary importation of materials
+foreign to a district, which in the past was the despair of architects
+of the "traditional" school.
+
+It was a wasteful practice that had gone far to obliterate all but the
+most robust traits in the old and very diverse local building
+conventions of rural England.
+
+Formerly, he who wilfully carried bricks into Merioneth or the
+Cotswolds, or slates into Kent or ragstone-rubble into Middlesex, was
+guilty of no more than foolishness and an aesthetic solecism.
+
+Under present conditions such action should render him liable to
+prosecution and conviction on some such count as "Wasting the shrunken
+resources of his country in a time of great scarcity, . . . in that he
+did wantonly transport material for building the walls of a house by
+rail and road from A to B when suitable and sufficient material of
+another sort and at no higher cost existed, and was readily accessible
+hard by the site at B."
+
+That indeed is our one chance of salvation, the existence and use of
+"the materials of another sort hard by the site."
+
+These natural materials and their appropriate use in building will be
+considered in the following pages.
+
+   *   *   *
+
+The Lutyens-Scott cottage, of which illustrations are given, is designed
+with a special view to the use of such local materials as cob, chalk,
+and Pise, though it could also be constructed without appreciable
+modification in stone or brick.
+
+It is thus a model of unusually universal application, providing, too,
+accommodation such as is certain to be demanded by the new and more
+educated generation that it is the aim of the country to produce.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+_COB_
+
+
+Sec. I. GENERAL
+
+If ever the counties of England recover their bygone loyalty to their
+own materials and their old traditions, then cob-building will return to
+Devon and the West. Cheap bricks, cheap transport, and the ignoble rage
+for fashions from the town went far to oust provincial cob from the
+affections of those whom, with their forbears, it had housed so well for
+several centuries.
+
+Whether the new loyalty be from within, or be imposed from without by
+force of circumstances, matters little. What does matter is the fact of
+its revival.
+
+For with it will come again the building of cottages that are knit
+intimately to their sites and surroundings as of old, cottages
+consanguineous with the ground they stand on, be it brick-earth, rock,
+or common soil.
+
+The soil of Devonshire and of many parts of Wessex and of Wales serves
+excellently well for building in cob or "clom."[3]
+
+    [Footnote 3: Probably, indeed, there is no county in the kingdom
+    that has not considerable areas where the soil would, if tried,
+    prove well adapted for cob-building.]
+
+The soil itself suggested the construction, and the men of Wessex were
+quick to take the hint and to act on it.
+
+The yeomen and small-holders of earlier days were commonly builders too,
+and often built their own homes in their own way, yet by the guiding
+light of local tradition.
+
+Thus the old Devonian countryman in need of a house would set to and
+build it himself--of stone if that were handy and easily worked, of cob
+if it were not.
+
+No doubt the doors and windows would be made and fitted by the village
+wheelwright; but the cottager himself would thatch or slate the roof as
+naturally and successfully as he built.
+
+The skill and care with which these versatile amateurs built their
+houses was not always of the highest, and careless construction, like
+other sins, is visited on the children--the worse the sooner.
+
+Thus it is that there are to-day plenty of old cob cottages that are
+both damp and insecure, but to condemn cob building in general because
+certain old builders were careless, ignorant, or incompetent is to
+condemn all materials from wattle and daub to ferro-concrete in the same
+breath.
+
+Cob, being a humble, amenable, and thoroughly accommodating substance,
+has reaped the inevitable reward of good nature in being "put upon" and
+in being asked to stand what is quite beyond its powers of endurance,
+and yet Devon cob houses of Elizabethan date are not uncommon.
+
+It is very reasonable in its demands, but two things it does
+require--dry foundations and a good protecting roof.
+
+To quote an old Devonshire saw on cob--"Giv'un a gude hat and pair of
+butes an' 'er'l last for ever."
+
+In many instances the Devonshire leaseholder, usually only a
+"life-lease" holder, built badly and on indifferent foundations. He
+neglected to repair his thatch, with the consequence that ruin followed
+sooner or later. He did not always use rough-cast, so that it often
+happened that by the time the lease expired the unfortunate landowner
+found that the cottage fell in--in the literal as well as in the legal
+sense. The lower portions of the walls were honey-combed with rat-holes,
+the walls bulged out or fissures resulted from subsidence, and the
+dwelling presented that appearance of squalor and meanness that has led
+so many to decry the mud buildings of Devon as relics of bygone
+barbarism. But if adequate care is bestowed on the construction, there
+is no reason why cob cottages should not prove at one and the same time
+comfortable to the inmates and pleasant to the eye, and endure for many
+generations.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Another view of the Cob House built by Mr. Ernest Gimson,
+  near Budleigh Salterton, Devon.+
+    _See Frontispiece_]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +A fine Specimen of a Devonshire Cob House.+]
+
+    [Headnote: The Beauty of Cob]
+
+As to their comeliness and longevity, a day's walk in Devon, or, failing
+that, a glance at the printed pictures will tell all that need be told.
+That the beauty of cob buildings is not due merely to the irregularities
+and weathering produced by the passage of time is sufficiently proved by
+the photographs of Mr. Gimson's charming cob cottage, taken soon after
+he had finished it.
+
+The work was done a year or two before the war; this is Mr. Gimson's own
+description of the manner of its building:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+"The cob was made of the stiff sand found on the site; this was mixed
+with water and a great quantity of long wheat straw trodden into it. The
+walls were built 3 ft. thick, pared down to 2 ft. 6 in., and were placed
+on a plinth standing 18 in. above the ground floor, and built of cobble
+stones found among the sand. The walls were given a coat of plaster and
+a coat of rough-cast, which was gently trowelled over to smooth the
+surface slightly. I believe eight men were engaged on the cobwork, some
+preparing the material, and others treading in on to the top of the
+walls. It took them about three months to reach the wall plate; the cost
+was 6s. a cubic yard, exclusive of the plastering. No centring was used.
+The joists rested on plates, and above them the walls were reduced to 2
+ft. 2 in. in thickness to leave the ends of the joists free. The beams
+also rested on wide plates and the ends were built round with stone,
+leaving space for ventilation. Tile or slate lintels were used over all
+openings. The cost of the whole house was 6-1/2d. a cubic foot. Building
+with cob is soon learnt--of the eight men, only one of them had had any
+previous experience, and, I believe, he had not built with it for thirty
+years. This is the only house I have built of cob."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+What is most interesting in this narrative is the workmen's lack of
+experience, which seems to have been no hindrance. Anyone who proposes
+to revive the use of cob may take courage from Mr. Gimson's evidence.
+The time spent in building the walls was reasonable and the cost low. It
+may be guessed that the post-war rise in cost will be no greater in
+proportion, if as great, when compared with brickwork. The natural charm
+of the wall surface is enhanced by the crown of thatched roof, modelled
+with a skill which few can bring so certainly to their task as Mr.
+Gimson.
+
+
+    [Headnote: Method of Building]
+
+Sec. II. METHOD OF BUILDING
+
+_Composition._--Cob is a mixture of shale and clay, straw and water.
+Shale is a common and widely distributed stratified formation of a slaty
+nature, and there are few types of clay soil that would not serve for
+cob-making.
+
+The precise relative proportion of the first two ingredients varies,
+depending on their individual peculiarities.
+
+Local custom as to the composition and preparation of the mixture will
+generally be found to have adjusted itself to the peculiarities of the
+soil.
+
+The following extract is from an analyst's report on a sample of typical
+old cob walling:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+"The material when placed in water fell to pieces. On analysis, it was
+found to consist of:
+
+                                                Per cent.
+  Stones (residue on 7 by 7 mesh sieve)            24.40
+  Sand, coarse (residue on 50 by 50 mesh sieve)    19.70
+  Fine sand (through 50 by 50 mesh sieve)          32.50
+  Clay                                             20.60
+  Straw                                             1.25
+  Water, etc.                                       1.55
+                                                  ------
+                                                  100.00
+                                                  ------
+
+"The material is a conglomerate of slaty gravel with a very sandy clay,
+to which mixture a small proportion of straw has been added.
+
+"The clay acts as an agglutinant, and the straw as a reinforcement.
+
+"Efficient protection from frost and rain would be necessary before such
+material could be considered weatherproof."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +A Devonshire Cob Farmhouse, probably between 200 and 300 years old.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +A Cob-built Village.+]
+
+(N.B.--Lime is occasionally added to the clay-shale, but this is not
+usual.)
+
+_Mixing._--The old method of mixing by hand is as follows: A "bed" of
+clay-shale is formed close to the wall where it is to be used,
+sufficient to do one perch. A perch is superficial measurement described
+as 16-1/2 ft. long, 1 ft. high, and the amount of material will vary
+according to the thickness of wall required. Four men usually work
+together. The big stones are picked out. The material is arranged in a
+circular heap about 5 or 6 ft. in diameter.
+
+Starting at the edge the men turn over the material with cob picks,
+standing and treading on the material all the time. One man sprinkles on
+water, and another sprinkles on barley straw from a wisp held under his
+left arm. The heap is then turned over again in the other direction,
+treading continuing all the time. "Twice turning" is usually considered
+sufficient. Straw bands may be wrapped puttee-wise around the legs of
+the men to keep them clean, and these are removed at the end of the day.
+
+More rarely the mixing is done in a rough trough, whilst a power-driven
+"pan-mill" has also been tried with success; though one would think that
+the use of such a machine might tend to diminish the binding strength of
+the straw submitted to its grinding.
+
+    [Headnote: Implements]
+
+  [Illustration: COB PICK (Measured from example at Great Fulford).]
+
+_Building._--In building a man stands on the low base-wall, and lays the
+material handed up to him on the cob picks, treading it into position.
+Thorough treading is important, and the heels should be well used. The
+material is allowed to project each side an inch or so beyond the stone
+base to allow for paring down afterwards. The courses are usually about
+2 ft. high. The cob should be laid and trodden in diagonal layers, as
+shown in the diagram: this is to secure proper bonding. It takes from
+two to three weeks for a course to dry, according to the weather, and
+five or six men would be required to build the walls of an ordinary
+cottage. This would not keep them continuously employed, however, and
+they would require to have several buildings in hand at the same time,
+so as to be able to turn from one to the other while the courses were
+drying.
+
+  [Illustration: COB COURSE, OR SCAR, SHOWING DIAGONAL LAYERS.]
+
+At the completion of a course the corners are plumbed up from the stone
+base below, a line is stretched through and the wall is then pared down
+"plumb" with the "paring iron" by the man standing on the wall.
+Sometimes, however, the paring down is left until the wall is finished
+and dry. Four men will do about four perches per day of a wall 2 ft.
+thick, preparing and laying material.
+
+The material is rarely laid between timber shuttering as in Pise work,
+as the retaining boards tend seriously to retard the drying out.
+
+  [Illustration: PARING IRON (Measured from example at Great Fulford)]
+
+_Drying._--If a course takes from two to three weeks to dry, it
+naturally takes a long time for a whole cottage to completely dry out.
+The walls can be built from about March to September. The internal
+fitting, plastering, etc., can be done in the winter, but the external
+rendering must not be done for at least a year, perhaps two years, to
+allow the walls to become perfectly dry.
+
+As unprotected cob is sensitive to frost, especially if not thoroughly
+dried out, it should be given a good external rendering as soon as it is
+really dry, and should in the meantime be protected from frost by some
+temporary covering, straw-matting or what not. Also all cob-work must be
+protected from the rain both whilst building and when built.
+
+No artificial methods of drying are at present usual, beyond good fires
+inside during the winter, though, as under such conditions a cob cottage
+is not usually considered fit to live in for several months after
+completion, some artificial means of drying might be worth considering.
+
+_Foundations and Base._--The depth of the excavations required for the
+foundations naturally depends upon the character of the site and soil,
+as also does the spread of the footings, if any.
+
+The base-course wall of brick, stone, or concrete should be carried up
+some 2 ft. or so above ground level. In old days this walling was not
+infrequently built "dry"--but good lias lime or cement should be used in
+all new work.
+
+The damp-course too was an unknown refinement to the by-gone builders,
+and the introduction of this one improvement alone makes the new cob
+cottage a very different dwelling from the old.
+
+The usual forms of damp-course serve well for cob walls, though slates
+laid butt and broken joint in cement are probably the best.
+
+    [Headnote: Walls and Roofs]
+
+_Thickness of Walls._--The thickness of walls may be anything you please
+from 18 in. upwards. There are old examples a full 3 ft. across, but for
+an ordinary two-storied cottage a thickness of about 2 ft. is general.
+Eighteen inches is certainly the minimum thickness, and would not
+ordinarily be adopted for any but one-storied buildings.
+
+The first-floor walls are made the same thickness as those below, for if
+they were reduced in width, as is usual in a stone building, the extra
+weight thus thrown on to one side of the ground floor walls would tend
+to make them bulge, unless quite dry and thoroughly set.
+
+There are old cob walls in existence fully 30 ft. in height, and there
+is no apparent limit in this direction provided they are thick enough.
+
+The upper layers compress the lower ones, and automatically render them
+more dense and stone-like and fit to bear the load imposed above.
+
+_Hipped Roofs._--As a general rule, however, it is found expedient to
+hip back the roof rather than carry it up in a tall gable, partly
+because cob-building at a great height above the ground in short and
+diminishing layers is a somewhat tedious process, partly because a
+hipped roof with good eaves is very welcome for the protection that its
+projection affords the walling.
+
+_Masonry and Carpentry._--The bonding of cob to stone and brick is
+sometimes liable to leave an open joint that will require filling when
+the cob dries and shrinks. Many of the chimneys in old cob houses are of
+brick or stone, and brick and stone jambs are sometimes to be seen in
+cob walls, but they are probably by way of repairs to damaged corners.
+It is considered better to have cob all round, so ensuring the uniform
+settlement of the building.
+
+The timber built into old cob does not seem to decay. The walls are
+usually so dry, especially when plastered, that the wood is well
+preserved. The straw in the interior of old cob walls is often as bright
+as when put in. The straw in cob performs a similar function to hair in
+plaster. Heather has sometimes been used instead of straw with good
+results.
+
+  [Illustration: WALL COPINGS.]
+
+The old practice was for beams, wall plates, joists, etc., to be just
+bedded on the cob, and for the cob to be filled in between the joists.
+In new work, particularly when the use of imperfectly seasoned timber is
+unavoidable, it would be wise to take the usual precautions as to the
+proper ventilation of all "built in" woodwork--especially the ends of
+joists and so forth. Roofs must of course be tied and exercise no thrust
+on walls. The roof plates are sometimes tied down by galvanised iron
+wire.
+
+  [Illustration: LINTEL-BEARING CROSS-PIECE]
+
+Door and window-frames are also fixed to wood blocks built into the
+jambs and to the wood lintels above. The frames are sometimes near the
+outer face of wall, sometimes near the inner-face. Where the door-frames
+are on the interior face of a 2 ft. thick wall, a convenient porch
+results.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +A Devonshire Farm, Local Material (Cob).+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Devon Country House, built of Devon Cob.+]
+
+Other joinery is fixed to wood pins driven into the cob where required.
+
+Corners are usually of cob, though stone quoins are occasionally met
+with.
+
+Lintels are usually of wood well tailed into the wall and resting on a
+wood pad placed crosswise.
+
+    [Headnote: Protection]
+
+_Protection._--Old buildings that have been neglected are often found to
+be somewhat eroded towards the bottom of their walls through the action
+of rain and frost.
+
+Protection is less here than higher up under the projecting eaves, and
+the Achilles' heel of the cob wall is undoubtedly its base.
+
+This vulnerable part, exposed as it is to driven rain, back-splash, and
+the casual kicks, should be given special protection.
+
+Where the base is of cob and not of masonry, the traditional method is
+to provide a good deep skirting of pitch or tar, or a mixture of both,
+applied hot to the face of the rendering that should completely cover
+the exterior of all cob work.
+
+This rendering is usually composed of lime and hair mortar, though
+Portland cement has come into use to some extent recently.
+
+Cement, however, is apt to be rather too "short" and brittle, and it
+does not always hold to the cob walling very securely.
+
+A rendering consisting of an equal mixture of cement and lime with three
+parts of sand adheres well to cob, however, and is probably the best
+coating that can be given to it.
+
+This coating can be colour-washed or lime-whited in the usual way. The
+granular surface of rough rendering or of "slap-dash" on the slightly
+wavy surface of cob walling perhaps gives to whitewash its very highest
+opportunity and charm.
+
+Certain it is that the old cob cottages of Devon with the pearly gleam
+of their white walls, their heaving bulk of thatch and their trim black
+skirtings, are as gracious and as pleasant to the eye as any in all the
+length and breadth of England.
+
+Within, lime-and-hair mortar plastered straight on to the cob makes an
+excellent lining.
+
+_Chimneys._--Nowadays, chimneys are commonly built up in brick or stone,
+but numerous good examples survive of flues and stacks constructed in
+cob. The insides of these are pargeted with lime and cow-dung in the
+usual way, brickwork being only introduced immediately around the
+fireplaces.
+
+_Rats._--Where the surface rendering of cob-walls has been omitted or
+has been allowed to fall away, an enterprising rat will sometimes do
+considerable damage by his tunnelling.
+
+A little powdered glass mixed with the lower strata of a wall will
+discourage any such burrowing, but the best preservative for any cob
+building is a thoroughly good skin of rendering, especially if this be
+reinforced by fine-mesh wire-netting secured to the wall.
+
+_Strength._--The strength of cob walls is surprisingly great so long as
+they are vertical, and are not subjected to undue lateral thrust or
+tension.
+
+Beams as large as 12 in. by 12 in. may be seen supported by old cob
+walls, and there is nothing likely to be asked of the material in the
+way of strength to which it cannot easily respond.
+
+_Design._--Cob, like every other material, should have a certain say in
+the design of any building in which its use is intended.
+
+The chief desiderata are a plain straightforward plan and broadly
+treated elevations where voids and solids are carefully disposed with an
+eye to getting as large unbroken blocks of cob as possible.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Cob House temp. Elizabeth, Lewishill.+
+  Walls from 3 ft. to 4 ft. thick. A wing was added in 1618.
+  This farm has been occupied by the family of the present holder
+  between 300 and 400 years.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Another Devonshire (Cob) Farmhouse, Weeke Barton.+]
+
+The cracks that are sometimes found in old cob buildings are almost
+entirely attributable to unsuitable design in such respects, or to bad
+foundations.
+
+Cob walls built up in the ordinary way are not very suitable for
+internal partitions on account of their considerable width and the
+consequent waste of space, though in old work cob was sometimes used as
+a filling for stud and lath partitions which were finally plastered over
+in the usual way.
+
+The sun-dried clay-lumps so much used for walling in Suffolk would seem
+to be admirable for forming the partitions in a house of cob.
+
+Cob work is usually repaired with rubble, stone, or brick.
+
+New openings are easily cut through cob walls, and this fact has
+occasionally led to the collapse of an old building through the zeal for
+light and air of some new occupier exceeding his caution, and causing
+him to cut away the substance of his walls in cheerful disregard of the
+laws of gravity.
+
+
+Sec. III. CONCLUSION
+
+  AUTHORITIES--ANCIENT AND MODERN
+
+Not by any means was cob exclusively the poor man's material, and
+several old homes of this sort still survive that are of some
+consideration.
+
+    [Headnote: Raleigh's House]
+
+Amongst them is Hayes Barton, the birthplace of Sir Walter Raleigh.
+Writing of Raleigh and his home, Mr. Charles Bernard says:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+_Sir Walter Raleigh's House._--"He had great affection for his boyhood's
+home--the old manor-house at Hayes Barton where he was born, and did his
+best to secure it from its then owner. 'I will,' he wrote, 'most
+willingly give you whatsoever in your conscience you shall deme it worth
+. . . for ye naturall disposition I have to that place, being borne in
+that house, I had rather see myself there than anywhere else.' But alas!
+it was not to be, and the snug and friendly Tudor homestead passed into
+other hands. The house at Hayes Barton was probably not newly built when
+Raleigh's parents lived there, and it says much for the character of cob
+that the house is as good to-day as ever it was; though for all that it
+has, to use Mr. Eden Phillpotts' words, 'been patched and tinkered
+through the centuries,' it 'still endures, complete and sturdy, in
+harmony of old design, with unspoiled dignity from a far past.' Lady
+Rosalind Northcote gives the following description of the house in her
+_Devon_. She writes: "In front of the garden, a swirling stream crosses
+a strip of green; and in the garden, at the right time, one may see the
+bees busy among golden-powdered clusters of candytuft, and dark red
+gillyflowers, and a few flame rose-coloured tulips, proud and erect. The
+house is very picturesque; it has cob walls and a thatched roof, and is
+built in the shape of the letter +E+; a wing projects at either
+end, and in the middle the porch juts out slightly. The two wings are
+gabled; there is a small gable over the porch and two dormer ones over
+the windows at each side of it, the windows having lattice lights and
+narrow mullions. Dark carved beams above them show up well against the
+cream-coloured walls. The heavy door is closely studded with nails, and
+over it fall the delicate sprays and lilac "butterfly" blossoms of
+wistaria.'"
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Ceilings of Modelled Plaster from old Cob Houses in Devon.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +A Cob Garden-wall with Thatched Coping.+]
+
+_Reed Thatch._--In recent years slates or tiles have replaced thatch for
+the roofing of cob buildings and walls, owing to the cost of reed (the
+local name for the straw from which the grain has been hand-threshed by
+flail to prevent the straw being broken), and the difficulty of getting
+good thatchers. The opinion is held by many that the lasting quality of
+thatch has deteriorated since the practice of liming the cornland has
+unfortunately been given up.
+
+_Primitive Methods._--Formerly the ground floors of cob cottages were
+all cobbled, but these have, generally speaking, been replaced by lime,
+ash, or cement floors. The cob builders of past generations apparently
+made no use of the square, plumb-line, or level. No laths were used for
+the walls, which were plastered within; outside, rough-cast or
+"slap-dash" was laid on.
+
+    [Headnote: Mr. Baring-Gould]
+
+_Mr. Baring-Gould's Testimony._--Mr. S. Baring-Gould, in his _Book of
+the West_, writing on the subject says: "No house can be considered more
+warm and cosy than that built of cob, especially when thatched. It is
+warm in winter and cool in summer, and I have known labourers bitterly
+bewail their fate in being transferred from an old fifteenth or
+sixteenth century cob cottage into a newly-built stone edifice of the
+most approved style, as they said it was like going out of warm life
+into a cold grave."
+
+
+  DEVON COB
+
+The following paragraph, taken from C. B. Allen's _Cottage-Building_, is
+of interest:
+
+"The cob walls of Devonshire have been known to last above a century
+without requiring the slightest repair, and the Rev. W. Elicombe, who
+has himself built several houses of two stories with cob walls, says
+that he was born in a cob-wall parsonage built in the reign of
+Elizabeth, or somewhat earlier, and that it had to be taken down to be
+rebuilt only in the year 1831."
+
+_Fruit Walls._--Again quoting Mr. Baring-Gould: "Cob walls for garden
+fruit are incomparable. They retain the warmth of the sun and give it
+out through the night, and when protected on top by slates, tiles, or
+thatch, will last for centuries." It will be seen that the disadvantages
+of cob buildings are solely due to faults of construction, and not to
+any inherent defect in properly made cob as a material, and that the
+construction of cottages, farm buildings, and garden walls is well
+within the compass of an averagely intelligent workman.
+
+It is not intended to argue that the cob cottage could be advantageously
+built in every county, but only that where it has been used and liked
+for centuries, a wise building policy would encourage its continuance.
+The materials are at hand, and the population ready to welcome this form
+of dwelling-place.
+
+    [Headnote: Old Cob Lore]
+
+_An Old Authority._--An old writer treating of cottage-building thus
+delivers himself:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+"A Bill for inclosing the waste lands of the kingdom having been
+introduced into the House of Commons, under the auspices of the Board of
+Agriculture, and as so beneficial a Bill cannot fail, sooner or later,
+to pass into a law, and as in consequence thereof, many small houses
+must necessarily be built, suited to small estates issuing out of
+allotments of such wastes, we have been induced to submit to the
+consideration of the Board three plans of such small houses to be built
+of different species of materials.
+
+"The first is with mud walls, composed of soft mire and straw,
+well trodden together, and which, by degrees, is laid on,
+stratum-super-stratum, to the height required; a species of building not
+uncommon for cottages, and even for better houses, barns, etc., in the
+western and some other parts of the kingdom. It is the cheapest
+habitation that we can construct and is also very dry and comfortable."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+And again:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+"Walls of mud, or of compressed earth, are still more economical than
+those of timber, and if they were raised on brick or stone foundations,
+the height of a foot or 18 in. above the ground, or above the highest
+point at which dung or moist straw was ever likely to be placed against
+them, their durability would be equal to that of marble, if properly
+constructed and kept perfectly dry. The cob walls of Devonshire, which
+are formed of clay and straw trodden together by oxen, have been known
+to last above a century without requiring the slightest repair; and we
+think that there are many farmers, especially in America and Australia,
+who if they knew how easily walls of this description could be built,
+would often avail themselves of them for various agricultural purposes.
+
+"The solidity of cob walls depends much upon their not being hurried in
+the process of making them, for if hurried, the walls will surely be
+crippled, that is, they will swag or swerve from the perpendicular. It
+is usual to pare down the sides of each successive rise before another
+is added to it. The instrument used for this purpose is like a baker's
+peel (a kind of wooden shovel for taking the bread out of the oven), but
+the cob-parer is made of iron. The lintels of the doors and windows and
+of the cupboards and other recesses are put in as the work advances
+(allowance being made for their settling), bedding them on cross pieces,
+and the walls being carried up solid. The respective openings are cut
+out after the work is well settled. In Devonshire the builders of
+cob-wall houses like to begin their work when the birds begin to build
+their nests, in order that there may be time to cover in the shell of
+the building before winter. The outer walls are plastered the following
+spring. Should the work be overtaken by winter before the roof is on, it
+is usual to put a temporary covering of thatch upon the walls, to
+protect them from the frost."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+    [Headnote: Mr. Fulford's Evidence]
+
+_Mr. Fulford's Evidence._--Mr. Fulford, of Great Fulford, near Exeter,
+whose own village and estate can show as many good examples of old cob
+work as any place in Devon, writes as follows:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+_Cost._--"It is not possible to give a close estimate of what would now
+be the comparative cost of a building in cob, stone, or brick, as this
+must depend upon the exact locality of the site. It may, however, be of
+assistance if I quote particulars of the relative cost of cob and stone
+building in Devon in the year 1808 when cob was in common use. The
+stonework referred to was rough rubble, and not with square or dressed
+blocks. It must be borne in mind that up to that date practically all
+material, stone, lime, etc., was carried on horses' backs. Wheeled carts
+which began to creep in about the beginning of 1800, were not in general
+use until twenty or thirty years later. As a boy I knew a farmer who
+remembered the first wheeled cart coming to Dunsford. In 1838 the Rector
+of Bridford (the 'Christowell' of Blackmore's novel) recorded the fact
+that in 1818 there was only one cart in the parish and it was scarcely
+used twice a year. In 1808 the price of building varied according to the
+district. In the northern part of the county the common price of
+stonework, including the value of three quarts of cider or beer daily,
+was from 22d. to 24d. the perch (16-1/2 ft.), 22 in. in width and
+1 ft. in height. Including all expenses of quarrying and carriage of
+materials, stonework worked out at from 5s. to 6s. per perch running
+measure, and cob estimated in like manner at about 3s. 6d. Masons when
+not employed by the piece received 2s. per day, and allowance of beer or
+cider. In the Dunstone district (the clay shales from which make the
+best cob) masonwork was 18d. per rope of 20 ft. in length, 18 in. thick,
+and 1 ft. high, stone and all materials found and placed on the spot;
+cob work of the same measure was 14d. In the South Hams district
+masonwork cost 2s. 6d., and cob 2s. per perch of 18 ft. in length, 2 ft.
+thick, and 1 ft. high."
+
+_Use of Shuttering._--"In those parts of the red land where Dunstone
+shillot or clay shale is not available, the red clay was mixed with
+small stones or gravel, and frequently the cob was laid and trodden down
+between side boards as used in building concrete walls. Three cartloads
+of clay built a perch and a half of wall 20 in. wide and 1 ft. deep.
+Eight bundles of barley straw, equal to one pack-horse load, were mixed
+and tempered with nine cartloads of clay."
+
+_Roofing._--"Thatching in 1808 cost 8s. per square of 10 ft.; 100
+sheaves of wheat-straw reed, weighing 25 lb. each, were sufficient for
+one square. Thatching, however, is not, as many suppose, indispensable
+as a roofing for cob buildings; slate found in many parts of Devon was
+frequently used, and of late years Welsh and Delabole slates, tiles, and
+unfortunately, from the picturesque point of view, corrugated iron, have
+to a large extent supplanted thatch."
+
+_A Protective Wash._--"Vancouver, in his report on the Survey of Devon
+for the Board of Agriculture in 1808, gave the following recipe, which
+he described as a preserving and highly ornamental wash for rough-cast
+that was then getting into common use: 'Four parts of pounded lime,
+three of sand, two of pounded wood ashes, and one of scoria of iron,
+mixed well together and made sufficiently fluid to be applied with a
+brush. When dry it gives the appearance of new Portland stone, and
+affords an excellent protection against the penetrating force of the
+south-westerly storms."
+
+_Rendering._--"For the rough-weather sides of cob buildings I have found
+cement and sand, finished with a rough surface, satisfactory, and far
+more durable than ordinary lime and gravel rough cast. For interior cob
+walls, laths are not necessary. The old plastering was frequently laid
+on too thick. Of late years I have used with excellent results granite
+silicon plaster for ceilings and walls. This requires no hair, and is
+easily applied."
+
+_The Cob Tradition._--"Cob-making was, like many other local trades,
+carried on in some families from generation to generation and developed
+by them into an art, but apart from these specialists, practically every
+village mason and his labourers built as much with cob as they did with
+stone. There are men still left in various parts of the county who have
+made cob, and it would, in my opinion, be of advantage if demonstrations
+could be given by them to discharged sailors and soldiers who are
+anxious to take up work on the land."
+
+_Training of ex-Soldiers._--"In cob-building, as in many other arts and
+crafts, a little showing is of far greater help to the novice than any
+amount of text-book instruction. The knowledge and experience that these
+men would gain from being shown, and better still, assisting an expert
+in making cob, would be of material advantage in the development of the
+county scheme promoted by the Central Land Association for the
+establishment of ex-Service men on the land. They could try their
+'prentice hands on walls, tool-sheds, cart linhays, etc., for their own
+use, and some no doubt would develop into expert builders capable of
+constructing walls for dwelling-houses from approved plans."
+
+_1819 Conditions Returned._--"The depletion of our home-grown timber
+supply and the prohibitive cost of practically all building material has
+in effect brought about the conditions that led our forefathers to
+utilise suitable material that lay nearest to hand, and unless some
+endeavour is made to follow their methods and profit by their example,
+it will be impossible to provide sufficient buildings for the necessary
+equipment of the allotments and small holdings, let alone housing
+accommodation for the workers on the land."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+    [Headnote: A Champion of Cob]
+
+There is probably no one who knows more about cob than does Mr.
+Fulford--certainly no one who has done more to promote the revival of
+cob-building both by precept and example.
+
+Cob is the traditional material of his native place, he has, as it were,
+been brought up on cob--he is familiar with both the ancient history and
+the modern practice of cob-building, and in short, he "knows."
+
+When a revivalist has knowledge as well as enthusiasm, the grounds of
+his faith are usually worth serious attention.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+_PISE DE TERRE_
+
+
+Sec. I. GENERAL
+
+_What it is._--"Pise de terre" is merely the French for rammed earth,
+and rammed earth is an exceedingly good material for the building of
+walls.
+
+The odd thing is that its very obvious merits should have secured it
+such small attention.
+
+It is no new-fangled war-time invention brought forth by our present
+necessity, but a very ancient system well proved by centuries of trial.
+
+_History._--Pliny gives an excellent account of Pise-building in his
+_Natural History_, and Monsieur Gorffon, who published a treatise on
+this method of construction in 1772, states that it was first introduced
+into France by the Romans.
+
+The following extracts from an old book based on a French original will
+serve well as an introduction to the study of Pise-building:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+_Capabilities._--"An account of a method of building strong and durable
+houses, with no other materials than earth; which has been practised for
+ages in the province of Lyons, though little known in the rest of
+France, or in any other part of Europe. It appeared to be attended with
+so many advantages, that many gentlemen in this country who employ their
+leisure in the study of rural economy were induced to make a trial of
+its efficiency; and the result of their experiments has been of such a
+nature as to make them desire, by all possible means, to extend the
+knowledge and practice of so beneficial an art.
+
+"The possibility of raising the walls of houses two or even three
+stories high, with earth only, which will sustain floors loaded with the
+heaviest weights, and of building the largest manufactories in this
+manner, may astonish every one who has not been an eye-witness of such
+things."
+
+_Of Pise and its Origin._--"Pise is a very simple manual operation; it
+is merely by compressing earth in moulds or cases, that we may arrive at
+building houses of any size or height."
+
+_Locale._--"This art, though at present confined to the single province
+of the Lyonese in France, was known and practised at a very early period
+of antiquity. The Abbe Rozier, in his _Journal de Physique_, says that
+he has discovered some traces of it (Pise) in Catalonia; so that Spain,
+like France, has a single province in which this ancient manner of
+building has been preserved. The art, however, well deserves to be
+introduced into more general use. The cheapness of the materials which
+it requires, and the great saving of time and labour which it admits of,
+must recommend it in all places and on all occasions, but the French
+author says that it will be found particularly useful in hilly
+countries, where carriage is difficult, and sometimes impracticable; and
+for farm buildings, which, as they must be made of considerable extent,
+are usually very expensive, without yielding any return."
+
+
+    [Headnote: Method of Building]
+
+Sec. II. METHOD OF BUILDING
+
+There is an exhaustive article on Pise in Vol. XXVII of _The Cyclopaedia
+or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature_, published in
+1819. The writer, Abraham Rees, D.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., draws chiefly on
+French authorities and his directions are most detailed and precise.
+
+  [Illustration: PISE.
+  _Implements for Pise or Rammed Earth Buildings_
+  +Pise Plant and Implements.+
+  (Reproduced from an old Encyclopaedia.)]
+
+_Definition._--He introduces his subject thus:
+
+"Pise-building, in Rural Economy, the name of a method of building with
+loamy or other earthy matters, which has long been practised with great
+success, and in a very cheap manner, in some departments of France, and
+which is now had recourse to with similar advantage in some parts of
+this country. It has been described, delineated, and recommended by Mr.
+H. Holland in the first volume of _Communications to the Board of
+Agriculture_, and is to be managed somewhat in the manner directed
+below."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+At great length and with immense detail, the plant, the preliminaries,
+and the process are each severally described.
+
+The pith of the matter is sufficiently given by the following extracts:
+
+_Shuttering._--"For the construction of the mould, take several planks,
+each 10 ft. long, of light wood, in order that the mould may be easy to
+handle; deal is the best as being least liable to warp. To prevent which
+the boards should be straight, sound, well seasoned, and with as few
+knots as possible. Let them be ploughed and tongued, and planed on both
+sides. Of these planks, fastened together with four strong ledges on
+each side, the mould must be made, 2 ft. 9 in. in height; and two
+handles should be fixed to each side.
+
+"All the boards and ledges here mentioned must be, after they are
+planed, something more than 1 in. thick."
+
+_Rammer._--"The instrument with which the earth is rammed into the mould
+is a tool of the greatest consequence, on which the firmness and
+durability, in short the perfection, of the work depends. It is called a
+pisoir, or rammer; and though it may appear very easy to make it, more
+difficulty will be found in the execution than is at first apprehended.
+A better idea of its construction may be formed by examining the Plate,
+in which it is delineated, than any words can convey. It should be made
+of hard wood, either ash, oak, beech, walnut, etc., or what is
+preferable, the roots of either of them."
+
+_Method of Working._--"Pise contains all the best principles of masonry,
+together with some rules peculiar to itself, which are now to be
+explained.
+
+"To begin with the foundation; this may be made of any kind of masonry
+that is durable, and should be raised to the height of 2 ft. above the
+ground; which is necessary to secure the walls from the moisture of the
+earth, and the splashing of the rain, which will drop from the eaves of
+the roof.[4] When these foundation walls are made level, and 18 in.
+thick, mark upon them the distance at which the joists are to be set,
+for receiving the moulds; those distances should be 3 ft. each from
+centre to centre. Each side of the mould being 10 ft. long, will divide
+into three lengths of 3 ft. each, and leave 6 in. at each end, which
+serve to lengthen the mould at the angles of the house and are useful
+for many other purposes. After having set the joists in their places,
+the masonry must be raised between them 6 in. higher, that is, to a
+level with the joists; there will, therefore, altogether be a base of
+2-1/2 ft., which in most cases will be found more than sufficient to
+prevent the rain, frost, snow, or damp from injuring the walls. Raise
+the mould immediately on this new masonry, placing it over one of the
+angles of the wall.
+
+    [Footnote 4: The introduction of a damp-course and the provision
+    of gutters at the eaves greatly reduce the function of the
+    masonry base in modern work.]
+
+    [Headnote: The Ramming]
+
+"A workman should be placed in each of the three divisions of the mould,
+the best workman being placed at the angle. He is to direct the work of
+the other two, and by occasionally applying a plumb-rule, to take care
+that the mould does not swerve from its upright position. The labourers
+who dig and prepare the earth must give it in small quantities to the
+workmen in the mould, who, after having spread it with their feet, begin
+to compress it with the rammer. They must only receive at a time so much
+as will cover the bottom of the mould to the thickness of 3 or 4 in. The
+first strokes of the rammer should be given close to the sides of the
+mould, but they must be afterwards applied to every other part of the
+surface; the men should then cross their strokes, so that the earth may
+be compressed in every direction. Those who stand next to one another in
+the mould should regulate their strokes so as to beat at the same time
+under the cord, because that part cannot be got at without difficulty,
+and must be struck obliquely; with this precaution, the whole will be
+equally compressed. The man at the angle of the wall should beat
+carefully against the head of the mould.
+
+"Care must be taken that no fresh earth is received into the mould till
+the first layer is well beaten, which may be ascertained by striking it
+with a rammer; the stroke should leave hardly any print on the place.
+They must proceed in this manner to ram in layer after layer, till the
+whole mould is full. When this is done, the machine may be taken to
+pieces, and the earth which is contained will remain firm and upright,
+about 9 ft. in length and 2-1/2 ft. in height. The mould may then be
+replaced for another length, including 1 in. of that which has first
+been completed.
+
+"The first course being thus completed, we proceed to the second; and
+here it must be observed that in each successive course we must proceed
+in a direction contrary to that of the preceding. It may easily be
+conceived, that with this precaution the joints of the several lengths
+will be inclined in opposite directions, which will contribute very much
+to the firmness of the work. There is no reason to fear overcharging the
+first course with the second, though but just laid; for three courses
+may be laid without danger in one day.
+
+"This description of the first two courses is equally applicable to all
+the others, and will enable any person to build a house, with no other
+materials than earth, of whatever height and extent he pleases.
+
+"With respect to the gables, they may be made without any difficulty, by
+merely making their inclination in the mould and working the earth
+accordingly."
+
+
+Sec. III. THE THEORY AND SCIENCE OF PISE
+
+_The Value of Ramming._--"Beating, or compression, is used in many
+different sorts of work; the ancients employed it in making their rough
+walls; the Italians employ it for the terraces which adorn their houses;
+the Moors for all their walls; the Spaniards, the French, and others for
+some of the floors of their apartments. The intent of the ancient
+architects, when they recommended the beating of cement and other
+compositions used in building, was to prevent them from shrinking and
+cracking; and it is employed for the same purpose in walls which are
+made of earth. The beater, by repeated strokes, forces out from the
+earth the superfluous water which is contained and closely unites all
+the particles together, by which means the natural attraction of these
+particles is made powerful to operate, as it is by other natural causes
+in the formation of stones. Hence arises the increasing strength and
+astonishing durability which houses of this kind are found to possess."
+
+_An Experiment._--"Upon beating a small portion of earth, and weighing
+it immediately afterwards, it was found to weigh 39-1/2 lb. Fifteen days
+after, it had lost 4-1/4 lb. In the space of another fifteen days it
+lost but 1 lb.; and in fifteen days after that its weight diminished
+only 1/2 lb. In the space of about forty-five days the moisture was
+completely evaporated, and its weight was diminished about one-eighth;
+consequently only one-eighth of the whole mass was occupied by moisture,
+and this small proportion cannot at all affect the solidity and
+consistency of the earth so treated. This experiment is also sufficient
+to show the difference between this kind of building and that vulgar
+kind called in England 'mud-walling.'"
+
+_Rate of Work._--"In one single day three courses of about 3 ft. each
+may be laid one over the other; so that a wall of earth of about 8 or 9
+ft., or one story high, may be safely raised in one day. Experience has
+proved that as soon as the builders have raised their walls to a proper
+height for flooring, the heaviest beams and rafters may without danger
+be placed on the walls thus newly made; and that the thickest timber of
+a roof may be laid on the gables of pise the very instant they are
+completed."
+
+
+    [Headnote: Suitable Soils]
+
+  ON EARTH PROPER FOR BUILDING
+
+_Suitable Soils._--"1st. All earths in general are fit for that use,
+when they have not the lightness of poor lands nor the stiffness of
+clay.
+
+"2ndly. All earths fit for vegetation.
+
+"3rdly. Brick-earths; but these, if they are used alone, are apt to
+crack, owing to the quantity of moisture which they contain. This,
+however, does not hinder persons who understand the business from using
+them to a good purpose.
+
+"4thly. Strong earths, with a mixture of small gravel, which for that
+reason cannot serve for making either bricks, tiles, or pottery. These
+gravelly earths are very useful, and the best pise is made of them."
+
+_Soil Tests._--"The following appearances indicate that the earth in
+which they are found is fit for building: when a pickaxe, spade, or
+plough brings up large lumps of earth at a time; when arable lands lies
+in clods or lumps; when field-mice have made themselves subterraneous
+passages in the earth; all these are favourable signs. When the roads of
+a village, having been worn away by the water continually running
+through them, are lower than the other lands, and the sides of those
+roads support themselves almost upright, it is a sure mark that pise may
+be executed in that village. One may also discover the fitness of the
+soil by trying to break with one's fingers the little clods of earth in
+the roads, and finding a difficulty in doing it; or by observing the
+ruts of the road, in which the cart-wheels make a sort of pise by their
+pressure; whenever there are deep ruts on a road, one may be sure of
+finding abundance of proper earth.
+
+"Proper earth is found at the bottom of the slopes of low lands that are
+cultivated, because every year the rain brings down the fat or good
+earth. It is frequently found on the banks of the river, but above all,
+it is found at the foot of hills, and on all cultivated lands which have
+much slope. In digging trenches and cellars for building, it generally
+happens that what comes out of them is fit for the purpose."
+
+
+  ON THE MIXTURE OF EARTHS
+
+_Soil Blending._--"As it may sometimes happen that earth of a proper
+quality is not to be found on the spot where it is intended to build, it
+becomes of importance to attend to the method of mixing earths; for
+though the earth which is near at hand may not of itself be proper, it
+is very probable that it may be rendered so by the mixture of a small
+quantity of another earth fetched from a distance. The principle on
+which a mixture must be made is very simple; strong earths must be
+tempered with light; those in which clay predominates, with others that
+are composed more of chalk and sand; and those of a rich, glutinous
+substance, with others of a poor and barren nature. The degree in which
+these qualities of the earths prevail must determine the proportions of
+the mixture; which it is impossible here to point out for every
+particular case, but which may be learnt by a little practice. Some easy
+methods will be described, by which any one may make a trial of the
+qualities of his earth.
+
+"It will not be amiss to mix with the earth some small pebbles, gravel,
+rubbish of mortar, or in short any small mineral substances; but none of
+the animal or vegetable kind must be admitted.[5] Such hard substances
+bind the earth firmly between them, and being pressed and pressing in
+all directions, contribute very much to the solidity of the whole; so
+that well-worked earth, in which there is a mixture of gravel, becomes
+so hard at the end of two years that a chisel must be used to break it,
+as if it was freestone."
+
+    [Footnote 5: "The pise does not admit any vegetable or animal
+    substances. In mud walls they put straw, chopped hay, hair,
+    flocks, wool, etc., to make the mud adhere to the wood, or laths;
+    whereas the workmen who build in pise are careful to pick out the
+    least straw or the smallest bit of root which remains in the
+    earth: in short, the pise is a mineral substance imitating stone,
+    consequently anything that can slake or rot must be excluded."]
+
+
+    [Headnote: Experiments]
+
+  EXPERIMENTS TO ASCERTAIN THE QUALITIES OF ANY EARTH
+
+_Trial by Experiment._--"Take a small wooden tub or pail, without a
+bottom, dig a hole in the ground of a court or garden, and at the bottom
+of that hole fix a piece of stone, flat and level; place your tub upon
+the stone, fill around it the earth that has been dug out to make the
+hole, and ram it well, that the tub may be enclosed, to prevent its
+bursting. Then ram into the tub the earth you mean to try; putting in,
+at each time, about the thickness of three or four fingers' breadths:
+when this is well rammed, add as much more, and ram it in the same
+manner, and so the third and fourth, etc., till the earth is raised
+above the brim. This superfluous earth must be scraped off extremely
+smooth, and rendered as even as the under-part will be, which lies on
+the stone. Loosen with a spade the earth around the tub, and you will
+then be able to take it out, and with it the compressed earth that it
+contains; then turn the tub upside down, and if it is wider at the top
+than at the bottom, as such vessels usually are, the pise will easily
+come out, but if it should happen to stick, let it dry in the air about
+twenty-four hours, and you will then find that the earth is loose enough
+to fall out of itself. You must be careful to cover this lump of pise
+with a little board; for though a shower of rain, falling in an oblique
+direction, will not injure it, yet it may be a little damaged if the
+rain falls perpendicularly, and especially if it remains upon it. Leave
+the lump exposed to the air, only covered with a board or flat stone,
+and if it continues without cracking or crumbling, and increases daily
+in density and compactness as its natural moisture decreases, you may be
+sure that the earth is fit for building. But you must remember that it
+is necessary that the earth employed should be taken from a little below
+the surface of the ground, in order that it may be neither too dry nor
+too wet; it must be observed also that if the earth is not well pressed
+around the outside of the tub before it is filled, though the hoops were
+of iron, they would burst, so great is the pressure of the beaten earth
+against the mould, of whatever size it may be."
+
+_The Earth-ball Test--An Experiment which may be made at any
+time._--"Every person in walking on his ground may make little balls of
+earth and press them as tight as he can between his hands. If he brings
+them home and puts marks on them, he will by that means know the quality
+of every piece of land, and also be a judge of the mixture it will be
+necessary to make."
+
+
+    [Headnote: Preparation of the Earth]
+
+  ON THE PREPARATION OF THE EARTH FOR BUILDING
+
+_Soil Preparation._--"All the operations of this art are very simple and
+easy; there is nothing to be done but to dig up the earth with a
+pickaxe, break the clods with a shovel, so as to divide it well, and
+then lay it in a heap, which is very necessary, because as the labourers
+throw it on that heap, the lumps of earth and large stones roll to the
+bottom, where another man may break them or draw them away with a rake.
+I must observe that there should be an interval of about an inch and a
+quarter between the teeth of the rake, that the stones and pebbles of
+the size of a walnut, or something more, may escape, and that it may
+draw off only the largest. If the earth that has been dug has not the
+proper quality, which is seldom the case, and it is necessary to fetch
+some better from a distance, then the mixture must be made in this
+manner: one man must throw one shovelful of the best sort, while the
+others throw five or six of the inferior sort on the heap, and so more
+or less according to the proportions which have been previously
+ascertained."
+
+_Rain._--"No more earth should be prepared than the men can work in one
+day, or a little more, that they may not be in want; but if rain is
+expected, you must have at hand either planks, mats, or old cloths to
+lay over the heap of earth, so that the rain may not wet it; and then as
+soon as the rain is over, the men may resume their work, which, without
+this precaution, must be delayed; for it must be remembered that the
+earth cannot be used when it is either too dry or too wet, and therefore
+if the rain should wet it after it has been prepared, the men will be
+obliged to wait till it has recovered its proper consistency--a delay
+which would be equally disadvantageous to them and their employer. When
+the earth has been soaked by rain, instead of suffering compression, it
+becomes mud in the mould; even though it be but a little too moist, it
+cannot be worked; it swells under the blows of the rammer, and a stroke
+in one place makes it rise in another. When this is the case, it is
+better to stop the work, for the men find so much difficulty that it is
+not worth while to proceed. But there is not the same necessity of
+discontinuing the work when the earth is too dry, for it is easy to give
+it the necessary degree of moisture; in such a case it should be
+sprinkled with a watering-pot, and afterwards well mixed up together; it
+will then be fit for use."
+
+_Organic Matter._--"It has already been observed that no vegetable
+substances should be left in the earth; therefore in digging, as well as
+in laying the earth in a heap, great care must be taken to pick out
+every bit of root, great and small, all sprigs and herbs, all bits of
+hay and straw, chips or shavings of woods, and in general everything
+that can rot or suffer a change in the earth."
+
+
+  ON THE BOND TIMBER TO BE USED IN BUILDINGS OF PISE
+
+_Corners._--"To make good walls, it is not sufficient that the earth be
+well beaten, we must also learn to unite them well together. Here the
+binders cost very little; they consist only of thin pieces of wood,
+a few cramps and nails, and these are sufficient to give the greatest
+stability to buildings of pise."
+
+Having gone on to explain that the angles of the building are formed by
+the successive courses alternately crossing one another on the corner
+like the alternating "long and short" quoins in a stone building, our
+authority proceeds to describe how rough boards are laid between the
+courses of pise so as to cross at the corner and so, entirely encased in
+tightly compressed earth, they form effective ties.
+
+"This board must be rough, as the sawyers have left it, 5 or 6 ft. long,
+something less than 1 in. thick, and in breadth about 8, 9 or 10 in., so
+that there may remain on each side 4 or 5 in. of earth, if the wall is
+18 in. thick; by this means the board will be entirely concealed in the
+body of the wall. When thus placed neither the air nor damp can reach
+it, and of course there is no danger of its rotting. This has been often
+proved by experience, as in taking down old houses of pise such boards
+have always been found perfectly sound, and many that had not even lost
+the colour of new wood. It is easy to conceive how much this board, from
+the pressure of the work raised above it, will help to bind together the
+two lengths of wall and to strengthen the angle."
+
+_Bonders._--"It is useful (particularly when the earth is not of a very
+good quality) to put ends of planks into the pise after it has been
+rammed about half the height of the mould. These ends of planks should
+only be 10 or 11 in. long, to leave as before a few inches of earth on
+each side of the wall, if it is 18 in. thick; they should be laid
+crosswise (as the plank before mentioned is laid lengthwise) over the
+whole course, at the distance of about 2 ft. from one another, and will
+serve to equalise the pressure of the upper parts of the works on the
+lower course of the pise.
+
+"The boards above mentioned need only be placed at the angles of the
+exterior wall, and in those parts where the courses of the partition
+walls join to those of the exterior wall, the same directions that have
+here been given for the second course must be observed at each
+succeeding course, up to the roof. By these means the reader will
+perceive that an innumerable quantity of holders or bondings will be
+formed, which sometimes draw to the right, sometimes to the left of the
+angles, and which powerfully unite the front walls with those of the
+partitions; the several parts deriving mutual support from one another,
+and the whole being rendered compact and solid."
+
+    [Headnote: The Strength of Pise]
+
+_Strength._--"Hence these houses, made of earth alone, are able to
+resist the violence of the highest winds, storms and tempests. The
+height that is intended to be given to each story being known, boards of
+3 or 4 ft. in length should be placed beforehand in the pise, in those
+places where the beams are to be fixed, and as soon as the mould no
+longer occupies that place, the beams may be laid on, though the pise be
+fresh made; little slips of wood, or boards, may be introduced under
+them, in order to fix them level. The beams thus fixed for each story,
+the pise may be continued as high as the place on which you intend to
+erect the roof."
+
+
+  ON THE TIME AND LABOUR NECESSARY IN BUILDING
+    A CERTAIN QUANTITY OF PISE
+
+_Speed of Building._--"Besides the advantages of strength and cheapness,
+this method of building possesses that of speed in the execution. That
+the reader may know the time that is required for building a house, or
+an enclosure, he need only be told that a mason used to the work can,
+with the help of his labourer, when the earth lies near, build in one
+day 6 ft. square of the pise."
+
+_Rendering._--"To prepare the walls for plastering, indent them with the
+point of the hammer, or hatchet, without being afraid of spoiling the
+surface left by the mould; all those little dents must be made as close
+as possible to each other, and cut in from top to bottom, so that every
+hole may have a little rest in the inferior part, which will serve to
+retain and support the plaster.
+
+"If you happen to lay the plaster over them before the dampness is
+entirely gone, you must expect that the sweat of the walls will cast off
+the plaster."
+
+The wall surface having been duly hammer-chipped, the work must be
+scoured with a stiff brush to remove all loose earth and dust, and to
+finally prepare it for rough-casting. Rough-cast consists of a small
+quantity of mortar, diluted with water in a tub, to which a trowel of
+pure lime is added, so as to make it about the thickness of cream.
+
+One workman and his labourers are sufficient; the workman on the
+scaffold sprinkles with a brush the wall he has indented, swept, and
+prepared; after that he dips another brush, made of bits of reed, box,
+etc., into the tub which contains the rough-cast, and throws with this
+brush the rough-cast against the wall.
+
+"Rough-cast, which is attended with so little trouble and expense, is
+notwithstanding the best cover that can be made for pise walls, and for
+all other constructions; it contributes to preserve the buildings. It is
+the peculiar advantage of these buildings that all the materials they
+require are cheap, and all the workmanship simple and easy."
+
+_Local Testimony._--At the end of the article just summarised, an
+instructive letter from a former rector of St. John's, La Rochelle, is
+quoted:
+
+  "SIR,--
+
+"My having been an inhabitant for some time of the town of Montbrison,
+capital of the Forets, enables me to give you some information
+concerning the mode of building houses with earth, etc.
+
+    [Headnote: A Pise Church]
+
+_A Pise Church._--"The church was the most remarkable in this style of
+building; it is about 80 ft. long, 40 ft. broad, and 50 ft. high; the
+walls built in pise, 18 in. thick, and crepe, or rough-cast on the
+outside, with lime and sand. Soon after my arrival, the church, by some
+accident, was destroyed by fire, and remained unroofed for about a
+twelvemonth, exposed to rains and frost. As it was suspected that the
+walls had sustained much damage, either by fire or the inclemency of the
+season, and might fall down, it was determined to throw them down
+partially, and leave only the lower parts standing; but even this was
+not done without much difficulty, such was the firmness and hardness
+these walls had acquired, the church having stood above eighty years;
+and all the repairs required were only to give it on the outside, every
+twelve or fifteen years, a new coating of rough-cast.
+
+"A house for a single family is generally finished in about a fortnight.
+The following is the method I have seen them practise."
+
+_Building Procedure._--"The earth is pounded as much as possible, in
+order to crumble any stones therein; clay is added thereto in a small
+quantity, about one-eighth part. It is all beaten and mixed up together
+by repeated blows with a mallet about 10 in. broad, and 10 or 15 in.
+long, and 2 in. thick. The earth being thus prepared, and slightly
+wetted, the foundation of the house is dug for; this is laid with stone,
+and when it is about 1 ft. high above the surface of the ground, planks
+are arranged on each side, which are filled with earth intended for the
+wall; this is called Pise in the dialect of the country. It is strongly
+beaten; and this method is continued successively all round the
+building. The walls have more or less thickness according to the fancy
+of the owner; I have seen them 6 in. and 18 in. thick. If several
+stories are intended in such erections, they do not fail to place beams
+to support the floors before they build higher. Of such buildings I
+never saw any consisting of more than three floors at most; generally
+they have but two. When the building is thus finished, it is left for
+some months to dry; then such as wish to make the building more solid
+and durable, give it a rough-cast coating on the outside with lime and
+sand. This is what I have observed during a residence of three years in
+the town of Montbrison. I should be happy if this detail should afford
+the slightest information to the generous nation which has received us
+with so much goodness.
+
+  "I am, etc.,
+
+    "JAUCOUR."
+
+
+_The Virtues of Pise._--"Such is the method of building which has been
+practised in the Lyonnese for many centuries. Houses so built are
+strong, healthy, and very cheap, they will last a great length of time,
+for the French author says he had pulled down some of them which, from
+the title-deeds in the possession of the proprietors, appeared to be 165
+years old, though they had been ill kept in repair. The rich traders of
+Lyons have no other way of building their country-houses. An outside
+covering of painting in fresco, which is attended with very little
+expense, conceals from the eye of the spectator the nature of the
+building, and is a handsome ornament to the house. That method of
+painting has more freshness and brilliancy than any other, because water
+does not impair the colours. No size, oil, or expense is required,
+manual labour is almost all it costs, either to the rich or poor. Any
+person may make his house look as splendid as he pleases, for a few
+pence laid out in red or yellow ochre, or in other mineral colours.
+
+"Strangers who have sailed upon the Rhone probably never suspected that
+those beautiful houses, which they saw rising on the hills around them,
+were built of nothing but earth, nay, many persons have dwelt for a
+considerable time in such houses without ever being aware of their
+singular construction. Farmers in that country generally have them
+simply white-washed, but others, who have a greater taste for ornament,
+add pilasters, window-cases, panels, and decorations of various kinds.
+
+"There is every reason for introducing this method of building into all
+parts of the kingdom; whether we consider the honour of the nation as
+concerned in the neatness of its villages, the great saving of wood
+which it will occasion, and the consequent security from fire, or the
+health of the inhabitants, to which it will greatly contribute, as such
+houses are never liable to the extremes of heat or cold. It is attended
+with many other circumstances that are advantageous to the State as well
+as to individuals. It saves both time and labour in building, and the
+houses may be inhabited almost immediately after they are finished; for
+which latter purpose, the holes made for the joists should not be closed
+up directly, as the air, if suffered to circulate through them, will dry
+the walls more speedily."
+
+
+    [Headnote: Indian and Colonial Practice]
+
+Sec. IV. INDIAN AND COLONIAL PRACTICE
+
+_A Manual on Earthwork_, edited by Colonel Maclagan, R.E., gives much
+interesting information as to Pise-building and a number of valuable
+hints:
+
+_Shutter-ties._--"Cross pieces, as the work proceeds, become so firmly
+embedded in the wall, that there is great difficulty in extracting them,
+to remedy which iron bars have been substituted. Even these thin iron
+bars become so tightly jammed when surrounded by the compact pise earth,
+that much labour and risk of injury to the work is incurred in
+extricating them, and the expedient of setting them in a bed of sand has
+been successfully resorted to. They are then drawn out with care, the
+sand also is removed, and the holes which they leave are subsequently
+filled with the same earth of which the wall is made, and rammed hard.
+
+"The heads of the opposite uprights are held together by ropes, but in
+practice in this country[6] it has been found that, under the immense
+pressure exerted upon the plank sides by the earth firmly rammed in the
+interior, the ropes are so liable to stretch, and to break, that it is
+advisable to use iron rods or bars in this position also. When ropes are
+used, the distance between the side planks is measured by gauge rods,
+and the ropes tightened when requisite to preserve the proper breadth of
+wall. The use of iron connecting rods renders this unnecessary."
+
+    [Footnote 6: India.]
+
+_Soil._--"Soil of a medium quality, that is neither very stiff nor very
+sandy, is considered best adapted for pise. It may be said that that
+which would make good bricks will answer well for this description of
+work.
+
+"When the earth is very dry, a sprinkling of water will be necessary."
+
+_Foundations._--"It is usual to begin the work upon a foundation of
+brick or masonry; but there seems to be no reason why the pise might not
+be used from the commencement, even for foundations under ground; being
+carefully guarded from all chance of injury by running water."
+
+_The Building._--"The casing being prepared and erected, and the upper
+surface of the old work, when above the first stage, being sprinkled
+with water, the earth, well mixed and slightly moistened, is thrown in,
+and spread in thin layers of 4 or 5 in. These should, when rammed, be
+reduced to one-half their original thickness. The rammers should be of
+hard wood and very smooth. The successive layers are similarly treated,
+and thus the work proceeds until the top of the casing is reached. The
+ends of each portion should be finished with a slope, to which will be
+joined the portion next to be added longitudinally. These joinings
+should not, in the successive courses, be above those of the lower
+stage, but as in masonry and brickwork, should 'break joint.' The seams
+are all distinctly perceptible when the work is complete."
+
+    [Headnote: Plastering]
+
+_Plastering._--"The wall may have a coating of plaster, or the surface
+may be simply smoothed and dressed with a shovel, or similar implement.
+When it is to be plastered, it is necessary that the wall should first
+be thoroughly dry. If dry only externally whilst damp within, it has
+been found that the moisture is apt subsequently to attack the plaster
+and cause it to fall off in flakes. Without plaster, good Pise work is
+found successfully to withstand exposure to the weather, and after the
+lapse of many years to be so compact and hard as to be picked down with
+difficulty."
+
+_Protection._--"Where the wall is not that of a roofed building, it
+should be provided with a coping, having a good projection to protect it
+from rain."
+
+_Rods versus Bars._--"The substitution of iron connecting bars for the
+wooden ones has been mentioned above. The evils of the wooden
+arrangement were found to be: the starting of the wedges, the fracture
+of the tenons, the tight jamming of the bars in the wall, and the injury
+to the walls and to the bars themselves from the force requisite to be
+applied for extracting them. The lower iron connecting bars are made
+3-1/2 in. by 1/2 in.; the upper, 1 in. by 1/3 or 1/4 in. each, having
+holes 1/2 in. by 1/4 in., with corresponding pins.
+
+"The mode of setting the bars and arranging the work on each successive
+elevation of the casing is to cut on the surface of the completed part
+of the wall a groove 1 in. wider than the bar, filling it in, after
+placing the bar, with sand, to the level of the wall's surface. The side
+boarding being set up, the vacant space left along the bevelled edge of
+the previous course is filled up with moist clay to retain the first
+layer of the new course. The end pieces are secured by iron bars or
+rods, with screws and nuts."[7]
+
+    [Footnote 7: "A convenient arrangement might be: to make the
+    lower and upper connecting bars alike, to raise the side boarding
+    a few inches above the upper bars, which, when embedded, might be
+    allowed to remain and become the lower ones of the next course;
+    the external apparatus being shifted by taking out the pins and
+    slipping off the stanchions and planks to be reapplied to the
+    upper bars already in position to receive them."]
+
+_Ramming._--"Gentle and quick ramming has been found most effectual."
+
+
+  _Report on the Pise-work executed at the Etah Jail during 1867-8.
+  By Mr. H. Sprenger, Assistant Engineer_
+
+"The boxes in which the pise-work at the Etah Jail is being executed
+consist of two wooden frames 10 ft. long and 2-1/2 ft. broad, made of
+planks, which are nailed on to stout battens. They are held together by
+four pairs of posts 3 in. by 3 in., which are connected above and below
+with tie-bars of flat iron 1-1/2 in. by 1/4 in. The tie-bars have at
+each end a certain number of 1/2 in. holes punched in them to receive
+pins for the purpose of preventing the posts from slipping off. By
+changing the pins, walls of any given dimension can be obtained, wedges
+of hard wood, with longitudinal slots, are introduced between the posts
+and the pins, to adjust the breadth of the boxes to a standard gauge.
+After the boxes are fixed and adjusted, they are secured in their
+position by ropes passing over them, and tied to stakes on each side.
+Any deflection from the vertical should be corrected at the commencement
+of the work, as it is impossible to alter the position of a box after it
+is half full. Any earth which is suitable for brick-making will do for
+pise-work. On being dug out it is passed through a screen with 1/2-in.
+meshes, and thrown into the boxes in even layers of 6 in. in depth.
+
+    [Headnote: The Right Quantity of Water]
+
+"Generally fresh earth contains sufficient moisture to ensure good
+consolidation; but if it is found that it jumps up under the rammers, it
+should, on being thrown into the boxes, be sprinkled with a little water
+out of a tin can with a rose. The watering should be as uniform as
+possible, as if it is applied unequally it will liquefy the earth, which
+will commence oozing out under the rammers. Pise-work executed with too
+much water is worse than if done with dry earth, as, on account of the
+elasticity of the wet earth, the effect of the ramming is deadened, and
+the earth remains unconsolidated. The men should be prohibited to keep
+time in ramming, as it causes vibration, which is injurious to the
+stability of the wall. On working over a lower course, it is as well to
+let the lower tie-bars about 4 in. into the same to give the boxes a
+firm hold on the old work, thereby the joints become imperceptible, and
+the upper edge of the lower course is prevented from chipping off.
+
+"The implements used are three different kinds of rammers. The earth is
+first beaten down with a V-shaped rammer, and then surfaced with one
+with a flat bottom. The sides of the boxes are consolidated with a
+spade-shaped rammer. When commencing the pise-work at Etah, considerable
+difficulty was experienced in extricating the lower tie-bars. These
+were, therefore, supplied with holes 3 in. apart throughout their whole
+length. A pin was inserted, against which a crow-bar with a long slot
+and well bent at the end was made to work. An equal pressure could
+thereby be exerted against the tie-bars; they were thus extracted with
+great facility without injuring them or the face of the wall, which was
+not the case formerly."
+
+
+  _Supplementary Note by Mr. E. Battie, Executive Engineer,
+  5th Division, Grand Trunk Road_
+
+"The work at Etah has generally been concluded in the following manner:
+In the morning the boxes were taken down, and again put up and filled
+during the day; they were left during the night, so that the earth might
+detach itself from the sides. It is not advisable to allow a course to
+dry thoroughly, as the upper one will not bind well into it, but
+probably show a crack. If the earth is well rammed, and only the proper
+quantity of moisture admitted, a second course can be commenced
+immediately."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+The Report of the Rhodesia Munitions and Resources Committee issued in
+1918 contains an interesting paper by Mr. John Hynd on Pise-building,
+from which the following is extracted:
+
+
+    [Headnote: Pise Buildings at Empandeni]
+
+"_Pise de Terre Buildings_
+
+"_The Spectator_ took this matter up some two years ago and wrote as
+follows:
+
+"'Various schemes of land settlement are in the air. . . . All of them
+must, however, be concerned with cheap buildings. That is a _sine qua
+non_.' . . .
+
+"The material used for the walls at Empandeni is one-third sand,
+one-third ant-heap, and one-third soil, all pulverised and put through a
+sieve. Water is then added. The mixture must be neither too wet nor too
+dry, just sufficiently damp to bind; a good indication of the correct
+consistency being that when squeezed hard by the hand it shows a
+tendency to bind. Sufficient of the loose mixture is thrown into the
+form to fill it to a depth of about 3 in., and this is thoroughly rammed
+before the next layer is put in. Most thorough ramming is essential.
+When the frame is rammed full, it is taken apart and shifted along to
+make another section and so on until the first layer is complete. The
+first layer is, as a rule, sufficiently dry to permit the starting of
+the next about three hours after laying. Door and window frames are put
+in as the work proceeds, and must be well braced while ramming. In the
+top layer hoop iron or fencing wire is let in for fastening down the
+wall plates. Arsenite of soda or Atlas Compound is used in the first
+layer or two to keep out white ants. The floor can be made of timber,
+cement concrete, or rammed earth, and the roof thatched or covered with
+corrugated iron as is most convenient.
+
+"The following Pise de terre buildings have been erected at Empandeni:
+
+"A large schoolroom 75 ft. by 28 ft. by 12 ft. high, walls 14 in. thick;
+seven boys' dormitories, each 30 ft. by 20 ft. by 12 ft.; twelve
+single-room houses, each 16 ft. by 12 ft.; six fowl houses, each 20 ft.
+by 10 ft.; a large fowl house 250 ft. long, front walls 7 ft. and back
+walls 5 ft. high. This building is divided into fifteen compartments.
+
+"From the foregoing description it is quite evident that cheap and
+efficient buildings of this nature can be erected at a very low cost.
+
+"On a farm it is not necessary to employ any skilled labour, as the
+doors and windows can be purchased ready-made, and the frame-work,
+clamps, etc., put together by the farmer himself. For a roof of thatch
+all the necessary material, except iron ridging, if this is used, can as
+a rule be procured on the farm.
+
+"Should a cement concrete floor, which is cheaper than a wood one, be
+desired, there would be an extra expenditure for cement, the amount
+required being about two bags per twelve square yards. Such a floor
+should be laid before the walls of the building are commenced, and it is
+essential that the site is thoroughly well rammed and consolidated,
+particularly below where walls will come, before laying the concrete, to
+prevent cracks developing through settlement. The concrete raft should
+be carried at least 6 in. beyond the outside walls of the building, and
+if the work is properly done, a special ant-course will be unnecessary.
+The concrete can be left rough below the walls to give a bond, and it
+might be advisable to lay some pieces of hoop iron in it which would be
+left projecting to be bedded into the walls.
+
+"Another good type of floor would probably be that suggested in _The
+Spectator_, viz. road material laid down and tarred in the same manner
+as roads are now made in many places.
+
+"A number of rooms and houses have been erected on the Globe and Phoenix
+Mine on much the same principle as Pise de terre buildings, but the
+system developed there is different as regards the mixture, which
+consists of two parts ant-heap or ordinary dagga which must not be too
+sandy, and three parts ashes or clinker sieved free from fine dust.
+
+"A very full description of the method employed on this mine was
+forwarded by the courtesy of the Manager to the Committee, and it is
+interesting to note from this that the walls are made waterproof by
+first making them smooth with dagga plaster, then, when quite dry,
+giving one good coat of boiling hot tar. A coat of limewash is applied
+three days later. That this is effective is well evidenced by the fact
+that the buildings erected have successfully withstood our last
+abnormally heavy rainy season.
+
+"The Globe and Phoenix system is the result of a number of experiments
+carried out on that mine. Their mixture, which is stated to be
+ant-proof, contains more moisture than Pise de terre, and each course is
+reinforced with old wire rope, or other suitable scrap. The material is
+left in a heap for one or two days before being used.
+
+"Circular huts have been built on the mine of the same material, the
+forms being made of two rings of corrugated iron in three or more
+sections joined up with cleats at the end laps and held in position with
+cross bolts and distance pieces. The inner ring is 9 in. less radius
+than the outer one."
+
+
+    [Headnote: Pise Buildings for Settlers]
+
+  _Extracts from a paper on Pise in the "Farmers' Handbook,"
+  issued by the Department of Agriculture, New South Wales, 1911_
+
+"Pise is a material readily obtainable by the settler, of which cheap
+and durable buildings can be easily and substantially erected.
+
+"For the construction of pastoral or agricultural buildings, especially
+in districts remote from railways, or from towns in which other building
+materials are cheap or easily procurable, pise is particularly well
+adapted. In the country earth is plentiful and readily obtainable; in
+the city or town such is not the case, and this fact, combined with the
+very bulky nature of the material, prohibits its use in such centres of
+population.
+
+"To the selector or settler, who, like many of our successful pioneers,
+is not burdened with a superfluity of hard cash, but who possesses an
+abundant capital of energy, combined with a certain amount of handiness,
+pise has an additional advantage (which it shares with slabs, wattle and
+daub, etc.) over most other building materials, in that it affords him
+an opportunity of erecting his homesteading largely as the result of his
+own labour.
+
+"As a building material, pise is infinitely superior and more durable
+than slabs, galvanised iron, or weather-boards. In fact it is
+questionable whether it is not more suitable for our climate, and
+therefore to be preferred to brickwork; for pise buildings, properly
+protected and finished, are quite as durable and much cooler than
+buildings constructed with solid brick walls. This statement may be
+questioned by some whose knowledge of pise is limited to buildings so
+badly planned that the very elementary principles of building
+construction have been neglected. This neglect, which is all too common,
+makes things bad enough, but when to it is added, as is sometimes the
+case, indifferent workmanship, combined with the use of unsuitable
+material, the result does not call for admiration, and it is not
+surprising that a bad impression is created. With no other knowledge of
+pise it is only natural to condemn it because of such specimens, but
+under similar circumstances other better-known building materials of
+proved excellence would also be condemned. Brickwork would just as
+readily be condemned if its building qualities had to be estimated by
+the appearance presented by a brick building which had been constructed
+of badly-burnt bricks laid by unskilful tradesmen on an imperfectly
+thought-out plan. Just as with other building materials, the
+possibilities of this material can only be judged by an examination of
+properly planned and constructed examples of the pise-builder's art.
+Such are found here and there throughout the country, pleasing to look
+at, affording comfort and satisfaction to their owners. A properly
+constructed pise building can be finished to suit the taste of the most
+fastidious. Even without plaster the walls can be 'floated' down and a
+'skin' obtained on them which, when limewashed, resembles stonework.
+When plastered inside and out they possess the advantages of a stone
+house, and are erected at a fraction of the cost.
+
+"Some idea may be formed of the durability of pise by the fact that
+there is a stable built of pise which has been in constant use for over
+sixty years, and which at the present time is in good order. The good
+condition of this stable is the more surprising because the external
+walls are unprotected from the weather, and it is generally recognised
+that pise-work, especially if unplastered, should be protected from the
+direct action of rain. Pise buildings are said to have a life of a
+century and a half.
+
+"The stability of pise buildings is beyond question, as is proved by the
+following instance:--At Lambrigg, a second-story brick building, with
+14-in. walls, and containing ten rooms, is built upon a lower story of
+pise. The bricklayer who had the contract for erecting the brick portion
+of the house refused, as it was built upon pise, to guarantee his work.
+Some time after the completion of the house he visited it, and after a
+thorough examination of the building, declared that it was the most
+substantial brick house in the district, as it had not a crack in it,
+a feature which was somewhat unusual in that locality. Another case
+bearing on the same subject is that of a residence at Temora. When this
+building was being constructed the workmen omitted to leave holes for
+the bolts which were to secure the verandah plates to the walls, as it
+was thought these could readily be bored out afterwards with an auger.
+On attempting to bore out these holes on the completion of the building,
+and when the pise-work had become drier, the operation of boring proved
+so difficult as to be practically impossible, and had to be abandoned.
+
+    [Headnote: Builders' Aversions]
+
+"The merits of pise-work have been recognised in France, India, Mexico,
+and California for years past, and seeing its equal suitability for our
+climate, it is surprising that these merits have not led to its being
+more extensively used. The principal reason for this seems to be because
+our builders are averse to undertaking this class of work, and in
+consequence the bulk of it is placed in the hands of untrained men, who,
+whilst quite fitted to carry out the pise-work, are not competent to
+undertake the other constructive work of a building. However, they do
+not hesitate to do this, as well as to undertake the more important work
+(though unrecognised as being so) of planning out the building. The
+result is in most cases an improperly planned and defectively
+constructed building, which appeals to no one, but has a tendency to
+bring pise into disrepute.
+
+"The reason for a builder's unwillingness to undertake pise-work is not
+far to seek. For the successful carrying out of his work a builder
+relies upon skilled tradesmen; our tradesmen are trained in cities and
+towns, and as pise is not a suitable material for such places, tradesmen
+do not become familiar with it. A good builder with a reputation to lose
+shrinks from placing that reputation at the mercy of a pise-builder, who
+is not recognised as a tradesman, and in whom, in consequence of this,
+a builder is likely to have little or no confidence.
+
+"The actual erection of pise-work presents so little difficulty that it
+can be done by any one who has sufficient strength to shovel earth and
+wield a rammer, provided he will exercise care to see that the moulds or
+boxes into which the earth is shovelled are kept plumb and in straight
+lines. The average settler, even with no previous knowledge of pise-work
+or building construction, need have no hesitation in undertaking the
+pise-work of his own buildings if he works to a well-thought-out plan
+drawn up by somebody competent to do so.
+
+"The necessity of having a plan prepared by some one who understands the
+principles and requirements of simple building construction, before
+undertaking the erection of any building, cannot be too strongly
+emphasised. This great need, which is often overlooked by the settler,
+cannot be economically dispensed with. The securing of a properly
+prepared plan is of the greatest value towards obtaining a building of
+the maximum strength and durability, combined with the best appearance
+and greatest convenience, for the least cost. Even when a settler
+undertakes the pise-work of his own building, it will only be in rare
+instances that he will not have the advantage of trained supervision
+during its erection. The services of a tradesman will invariably be
+found necessary to make doors and window-frames, construct the roof,
+etc. This workman can be engaged when the building is started, and
+whilst preparing the timbers of the roof, in readiness for the time when
+they will be required on the completion of the pise-work, can supervise
+the fixing of the door and window frames, and see they are set
+correctly, and in their proper places.
+
+"Pise walls are constructed in sections, the extent of which is
+regulated by the supply of casings available.
+
+"Into the moulds formed by the boxes the earth is shovelled in layers of
+4 or 5 in., and then rammed until thoroughly solid before another layer
+is put in. On the completion of the section, _i.e._ when the mould is
+full and well rammed, the keys or pins are knocked out of the 'bolts,'
+and the 'boxes' taken apart and erected on another portion of the
+building. The top of that portion of the pise-work on which it is
+proposed to erect another section should be well moistened and covered
+with wet bags some hours before the mould is formed. The bottom of the
+mould should overlap the top of the pise-work by about 6 in. After the
+'boxes' are put together, the top layer of pise should be loosened with
+a pick so as to form a bond with the section about to be built, and if
+this section adjoins one already built, the ends of the latter should be
+bevelled off so as not to form a straight joint.
+
+"Material which is too sandy will fret away, and one containing clay
+will crack when dry. Soils containing these defects should be avoided.
+There is, however, such a wide range of soils which are suitable that a
+holding of any size on which suitable soils cannot be found will be the
+exception. It is possible to remedy the defects found in one soil by
+mixing it with another soil, but very rarely will such a course be
+necessary.
+
+    [Headnote: Number of Men Required]
+
+"The plant required will depend upon the number of men to be employed.
+Three is the least number that can be economically employed--two
+attending to the boxes and ramming, and one carting earth from its
+location to the building and assisting generally. The plant required for
+this number of men is given below. If more are engaged, additional plant
+of the same character will be found advantageous.
+
+"The necessary plant will consist of--2 wooden rammers, 1 iron shod
+rammer, 2 straight boxes, 2 angle boxes, 3 casings for blocking up the
+ends of boxes, bolts and keys for same, 12 gauge rods, washers--a
+liberal supply of 3/4-in. washers, 2 shovels, 1 spade, a horse and dray
+or other means for transporting the material to the building (if
+required)."
+
+The following detailed instructions are taken from the same authority:
+
+
+    [Headnote: Pise in New Zealand]
+
+  SPECIFICATION CLAUSES FOR A PISE HOUSE (NEW ZEALAND)
+
+_Excavator._--Remove the turf to make footings, but not deeper at any
+place than 3 in. Step where required.
+
+  _Pise-Builder_
+
+_Walls._--Erect the walls as shown on plan, external walls 18 in.,
+internal walls 15 in., carried up plumb and true, with all cross walls
+properly bonded by continuing the pise-boxes around all angles; when
+necessary, the material for the walls is to be properly tempered with
+sufficient water. All sticks and vegetable matter are to be removed.
+
+_Suitable material_: to be a pipeclay loam, with a trace of small gravel
+evenly distributed through it.[8] The boxes to be filled in thin layers
+of 4 in. at a time, and well rammed until solid; the workmen are not to
+use their rammers in unison.
+
+    [Footnote 8: This was specified because it was the best material
+    near the site.]
+
+The whole of the internal angles, also door and window jambs, to be
+neatly splayed.
+
+_Floating._--Moisten well the outside and inside walls before the floors
+are laid, and float same to even smooth surface with wooden hand-float,
+using weak plaster, where required.
+
+_Bolts._--To hold down wall-plates, provide and build in 1/2 in. bolts,
+not less than 15 in. long, and spaced not more than 6 ft. apart.
+
+_Damp-course._--Below all walls lay a three-ply Ruberoid damp-course the
+full width of walls, to lap at ends at least 4 in.
+
+_Ventilators._--Insert below floors, where directed, four 9 in. by 6 in.
+galvanised iron air gratings, in wooden frames 1-1/2 in. thick by full
+width of walls; also insert at about 18 in. below ceiling similar air
+gratings and frames.
+
+_Plugs._--Insert plugs 3 ft. apart for skirting, chair and picture-rail,
+at the heights directed.
+
+_Frames._--Set all frames plumb and true, and secured in wall before
+removing head. Lintels and heads must be well and solidly bedded in
+mortar, at proper heights. The whole of the work to be done in a proper
+workmanlike manner.
+
+_Fillet._--Finish against intersection of floor and wall with neat 1-1/2
+in. quarter-round fillet, scribed to wall and floor and nailed to
+floors.
+
+The pise-builder will require to build into wall at all window and door
+openings 3 in. by 3 in. shaped plugs, spaced not more than 3 ft. apart
+to secure architraves.
+
+_Lintels._--For all door and window openings provide 6 in. by 4 in.
+well-seasoned pine lintels, to extend 12 in. into pise-work on each side
+of opening.
+
+_Skirting._--Provide and fix in all rooms, to plugs about 3 ft. apart,
+6-in. skirting, neatly scribed to floors, mitred at angles as required.
+
+_Picture-rail._--Provide 3 in. by 1 in. picture-rail to all rooms.
+
+_Plugs._--Prepare and tar for pise-builder 3 in. by 1 in. well-seasoned
+softwood plugs, 15 in. long, as per detail, for skirtings, picture- and
+chair-rail, to be inserted 3 ft. apart.
+
+
+  STUDDING, WIRE-NETTING, AND PISE
+
+"This is a modification of Pise, which provides a settler in a district
+where poles and saplings are available with a quick method of providing
+himself with a comfortable temporary residence without the expenditure
+of much cash. To construct buildings of this character, a framework of
+saplings or poles, at intervals of 3 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. apart, is first
+erected; this framework is covered on both sides with 1-1/4 in. mesh
+wire-netting. The two sections of netting are held together,
+strengthened, and prevented from stretching and bulging between the
+posts by means of wire hooks or loops, which are as long as the posts
+are wide. The spaces thus enclosed by the netting and the poles are then
+filled with earth, which is well rammed, thus making a solid wall 4 in.
+to 6 in. thick. This wall can be plastered, the plaster forming a key
+with the wire-netting, which holds securely. Buildings of this character
+can be made to look rather attractive, and, if neatly constructed, are
+very much superior, both in appearance and comfort, to slabs or wattle
+and daub."
+
+
+    [Headnote: Pise Shuttering]
+
+  PISE SHUTTERING
+
+  I
+
+That the plant now commonly in use for pise-building is but a slight
+improvement on the anciently accepted model, may be seen by a comparison
+of modern examples with old engravings and descriptions. Pise-building
+lay off the great main stream of constructional activity, and the
+enterprise and ingenuity lavished on the perfecting of other building
+materials and methods passed Pise by, leaving it undisturbed in its
+quiet backwater, a primitive system still with its primitive tackle.
+
+Yet there were a number of very obvious and unnecessary shortcomings in
+the accepted shuttering that seemed to clamour for attention, defects,
+too, that were in no way inherent, but merely traditional infelicities
+reproduced in succeeding models that remained remarkably true to their
+primitive ancestral architype--the Pise plant described by Pliny.
+
+Here seemed to be a very promising field for an ingenious inventor,
+a field that is still "To Let."
+
+In the absence of any such inventive genius, the author has had certain
+ideas of his own embodied in the "Mark V" type of shuttering--a type
+that further experience and experiment will doubtless modify.
+
+The principle of the building-process remains unaffected. The
+improvements, such as they are, are merely improvements of mechanism.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  DIAGRAM OF MARK V PISE SHUTTERING]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Mark V Shuttering.+
+  Showing top cross-braces thrown back and free leg disengaged.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Mark V Shuttering.+
+  Showing screw-up securing tackle of exterior corner-piece
+  and its rounded interior. Also screw-cramp at interior angle
+  of shuttering.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Mark V Shuttering.+
+  Shuttering about to be removed from a first section of Pise walling.
+  Top cross-braces have been thrown back and clamps to legs released.
+  It is now only necessary to detach the stays and lift away the
+  shutters. Where, as here, there is no masonry plinth, the
+  bearing-pins are only required for the succeeding courses of Pise,
+  and need not be inserted for the first.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Mark V Shuttering.+
+  The angle-iron stay with cross-brace raised, and the blocking-box
+  showing its internal clamping-gear.]
+
+Scientific research could doubtless, if it would, do much towards
+perfecting Pise-building.
+
+We know very little about the behaviour of different earths under
+compression, or of their several reactions to chemical treatment.
+Meanwhile, a few trifling mechanical modifications are all that
+distinguish our modern plant from that devised by the ancients. That
+said, a short description of the "Mark V" model may be of some interest,
+pending the future developments that may now be hoped for.
+
+
+  II
+
+The chief desiderata in designing a satisfactory Pise plant appear to be
+these:
+
+All constituent parts should be reasonably light and easy to handle. The
+shutters should be rigid and not liable to warp, without being
+expensively constructed. The shutters, when clamped in position, should
+be firmly and positively supported, without deviation from the vertical.
+
+The fairway between the shutters must be as little obstructed by the
+cross-braces as may be, leaving good room for the men on the wall to
+tread and ram.
+
+The through-pins by which the shuttering rests upon the base wall or on
+a completed course of Pise, must be easily withdrawn without injury to
+the wall.
+
+The shuttering must be easily disengaged and removed from the wall, one
+side at a time.
+
+The special corner-piece must have some means of rigid attachment to the
+ordinary shutters on the two meeting walls.
+
+There must be some means of blocking off the shuttering at any desired
+point, for the forming of door or window openings at any level.
+
+The whole apparatus must be as simple and as fool-proof as possible, and
+built to stand rough usage and exposure to the weather.
+
+
+  III
+
+The author has attempted to construct a plant embodying these
+essentials, and the working drawing and photographs shown will give the
+reader a tolerable idea of his "Mark V" model.
+
+The thing has, at the moment of writing, only been experimentally tested
+in one of the London parks. These trials were, however, sufficiently
+satisfactory to encourage a belief that the new plant will prove a very
+considerable improvement on the old. It has now been despatched to a
+site in Surrey, there to undergo the searching and very practical test
+of being used for the building of a small-holder's house and homestead.
+
+
+  IV
+
+To the second edition of this book a postscript must be added. Since the
+last paragraph was written, the small-holder's house has come into
+actual being at Newlands Corner, near Guildford, and has attracted a
+good deal of attention from the Press, both at home and abroad. It has
+been inspected by multitudes of people, including a great number of
+Colonials and prospective Colonists, and by many distinguished persons
+directly or indirectly concerned with the problems of housing.
+
+That "Good wine needs no bush" may be a true saying, but a novel system
+of building assuredly needs demonstration, however great its merits. The
+success of the experiment at Newlands is admitted by all who have made
+the pilgrimage thither. Often would critics come to scoff and remain to
+pray. Specially prized amongst the converts is a foreman-bricklayer once
+openly scornful in his unbelief. Of enthusiasm, perhaps, there has been
+almost over much; and it has been difficult to restrain the zeal of
+would-be pise-builders until the coming of spring, and the return of
+such weather conditions as the craft might reasonably demand.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +A Simple Mould for Pise Blocks.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Block-Moulds, Large and Small. The Latter shown opened out.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Sketch of a Pise House in Course of Erection.+
+  With acknowledgements to _The Sphere_.]
+
+For pise is a "dry-earth" method of building, and, as at present
+practised, that means it is a summer job, so far, at any rate, as
+England is concerned.
+
+The author is the last person to claim that pise-building may be
+successfully and economically carried out in all places, and at all
+seasons. He merely suggests that in a great many parts of the United
+Kingdom, pise offers possibilities of cheap yet permanent building that
+are very well worth exploitation.
+
+A wide and thorough trial of the method now seems assured under a
+variety of conditions in a sufficient variety of places. Pise is to be
+given its chance in Housing Schemes, in Government building
+demonstrations, on Ducal estates, and by ordinary private citizens in
+need of houses--by the rich (old and new), and by the poor.
+
+    [Headnote: If Reason Rule]
+
+If reason rule, pise will make good and all will be well.
+
+If pise-building is attempted where the conditions are unsuitable and in
+defiance of its physical limitations, the misguided enthusiasts
+responsible must blame only themselves. But it is not self-reproach
+alone that they will have to suffer, for the author and all true friends
+of pise will view their troubles with as much anger as sorrow.
+
+Nothing could be so well calculated to bring discredit on a new movement
+as the failures of a few enthusiastic incompetents.
+
+
+  THE FIRST DEMONSTRATION PISE DE TERRE HOUSE AT NEWLANDS CORNER,
+  NEAR GUILDFORD
+
+  _With acknowledgments to the "Spectator"_
+
+_Description._--The house has six rooms arranged on one floor, of areas
+and cubical contents as laid down in their higher "schedules of
+accommodation" by the Ministry of Health and the Board of Agriculture.
+
+The plan is an adaptation of the first type illustrated in the Board's
+new manual "designed for the guidance of County Councils and their
+architects" in the matter of buildings for small-holdings.
+
+The walls are of 18-in. solid pise-work, the roof of red Bridgewater
+tiles, and the chimney breasts and stacks of brickwork.
+
+The floors are boarded save for the back kitchen, which is tiled. The
+inner partitions are of 2-in. breeze blocks, the ceilings are plastered,
+and the casement windows are of steel.
+
+There are two good lofts for storage, one entered from the barn, which
+is an extension of the house proper.
+
+The pillars of the barn and the partition wall between scullery and
+veranda are of 18 in. by 9 in. by 9 in. rammed earth blocks; the angle
+pillar to the veranda is of similar blocks made from soft chalk.
+
+The rest of the structure is of monolithic pise, built up _in situ_
+without joints of any kind, either horizontally or vertically.
+
+_Cost._--The total cost of the whole of the outer walling of the house
+(in pise) amounted to less than L20. Had the walls been built in
+brickwork the cost would, according to estimate, have been about L200.
+
+    [Headnote: The Newlands Specification]
+
+_Specification._--The following is an abridged extract from the
+specification so far as it affects the pise-builder:
+
+(1) Excavate to a depth of 9 in. over the site, dumping the turf and
+surface humus where directed.
+
+This soil is not to be used for building.
+
+(2) Lay a 6-in. bed of cement and flint concrete 3 ft. wide under outer
+walls. Centrally on this, lay two courses of brickwork in cement, to a
+width of 18 in., or build up to the same extent in concrete.
+
+Lay on this an approved damp-proof course; if of slates, having a
+further course of brickwork or concrete above it to prevent fracture
+when ramming.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +The Newlands Corner Pise Demonstration Building.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Newlands. The Cottage from the South-east.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Newlands. The Garden Court.+]
+
+(3) Erect the walls according to the plan on the bases thus formed,
+carrying them up plumb and true and properly bonded by working round the
+building course by course, using the special angle-pieces at the corners
+to keep the work continuous and homogeneous.
+
+(4) All stones and flints above a walnut size to be removed by riddling
+and reserved for concrete.
+
+All sticks, leaves, roots, and other vegetable matter to be eliminated.
+
+(5) The soil immediately on the site to be used without admixture of any
+sort and to be thrown direct into the shutterings.
+
+No water to be added without the express permission of the architect.
+
+(6) The boxes are to be filled in thin layers of not more than 4 in. at
+a time, and well rammed until solid. The workmen are not to use their
+rammers in unison.
+
+(7) Rammed earth at box ends to be shaved down to a 45 degrees slope so
+as to splice in with new span of pise adjoining it.
+
+Where door and window openings occur, the special "stops" to be adjusted
+and firmly secured so as to withstand hard ramming. Two 4 in. by 2 in.
+by 9 in. plugs to be built in to each window jamb for the securing of
+the frames and three to each door jamb.
+
+Special care to be taken in the thorough ramming at the corners and
+along the box edges.
+
+(8) Insert below floor level, where directed, 24 3-in. field drainage
+pipes to act as ventilators through the thickness of the wall. Insert
+wire mesh stops to exclude vermin.
+
+(9) Set all frames square and plumb, and where in outer walls, flush
+with finished exterior plaster-face, the joint being covered by a 2-in.
+by 3/4-in. fillet.
+
+Where lintels occur, they are to be tailed in at least 9 in. on each
+side the opening.
+
+Provide plain picture-rail round all rooms at window-head level,
+providing plugs for fixing where necessary.
+
+Secure to floor round all boarded rooms a 2-in. by 1-1/2-in. angle
+fillet as skirting.
+
+(10) The smooth surface of the pise walling to be hammer-chipped to give
+good key to the plaster.
+
+Before rendering or plastering walls, any loose earth or dust to be
+removed with a stiff brush and the wall surface evenly wetted.
+
+  [Illustration: NEWLANDS CORNER PISE HOUSE. THE PLAN.]
+
+The rendering to be carried evenly round the walls--the minor square
+angles being roughly chipped down first so as to obviate sharp corners.
+The main corners of the house are ready-rounded off to a 9-in. radius by
+the special corner mould.
+
+(11) Bond brick and slab work to pise walls by driving iron spikes into
+the latter every few courses at joint level and bedding in.
+
+(12) Colour-wash walls with tallow lime-whiting tinted with ochre.
+Provide 2 ft. skirting of pitch, applied hot, to form base-course round
+exterior of building.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Newlands. The Backyard, showing Barn with Pise Pillars.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Newlands. Framing the Roof.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Newlands. An Interior, showing Fire-brick Hearth Fire.+]
+
+N.B.--The exterior of the walls of the Newlands Corner house have been
+finished in several different ways with a view to determining the most
+durable and economical form of epidermis.
+
+A trial pise-building adjoining has stood for four years without any
+external protection whatever. It has suffered no damage and grows
+continually harder. For the sake of appearances, however, and for the
+better preservation of the wall from chance injury whilst still "green,"
+a coating of some sort may be deemed necessary.
+
+
+    [Headnote: A Swedish Contribution]
+
+  THE THEORY OF PISE
+
+The Swedish scientist, Mr. Karl Ellington, of Nossebro, who is basing a
+book on pise (in his own tongue) upon the frail foundation of the
+present volume, has, in the course of a letter to the author, made some
+exceedingly suggestive "guesses at the truth."
+
+"I am very interested to hear that you are proposing to use an hydraulic
+rammer for making blocks. I have thought a good deal about this pressure
+business. I am trying to scrutinise the thing from 'the inside,' so to
+speak. I am trying to trace out how Nature makes rock. That helps us to
+understand pise. Nature made all the stratified rocks out of what was
+once fine loose earth and mud. Rivers carried the mud out to sea. Waves
+pounded and gnawed the shores and got down some more stuff. The tides
+went forth and back and shovelled and levelled at the sea-bottom. Some
+more mud on top of that, and a few hundred or thousand feet of the heavy
+water on top of that--and Nature's pise was in its making. But why do
+these mud particles stick together for ever even after that stratum is
+raised up high above the sea and the pressure is discontinued? That is
+the counterpoint of the whole problem. What is gravitation? Is it some
+form of magnetic or electric energy? We don't know. Do particles of mud
+grip and hold each other if they are forced together close enough to be
+united by some sort of magnetic or electric energy? Or do the particles
+only get a 'mechanical' grip on each other? However that may be, we seem
+to know now that we can make them grip by bringing them closely
+together. It would seem important, then, that we must bring as much of
+particle surfaces together within any given cubic space as we possibly
+can; that is, we must have as little of 'holes,' 'empty spaces,' pores
+and channels as possible in the mass, in the pressed wall. This, then,
+would in turn make it important that plenty of very fine (small)
+particles must be present in the mass--and so well distributed among the
+coarser particles as to be on hand close by wherever there can be one
+more chance for a small particle to fill a little chamber that the
+coarser particles would like to bridge over. We can think of how well
+Nature was fitted for this work of shuffling over all the particles at
+the sea-bottom and under great water pressure till she got every
+particle into the niche where it would exactly fit. She used waves,
+tides, and gulf streams as shovels and mixers and packers, and the water
+above as 'hydraulic rammer.' Looking at the pise matter in this way, it
+would appear that both the _mixing_ and the _shuffling_ are of vital
+importance. And by 'shuffling' I mean in this connection only that the
+smaller and larger particles get a chance to shift over a little during
+the process of pressing the earth together to hardness, so that the
+pressure may not work only and exclusively in a straight downward
+direction, but in a sort of wavy zigzag direction as well--much as when
+a street-roller is working the macadam and gravel a little forth and
+back at the same time as downward. I have a great respect for old tools
+which are the outcome of long-time experience and handed-down wisdom.
+I suspect the presence of some of that sort of experience in the rammer
+described in your book, p. 59. That tool would do the necessary shifting
+while attending to its _main_ intention: hammering the mass solidly
+together downwards. Now for your hydraulic rammer--is it advisable to
+make it blow or press only in a straight line downward? Maybe there
+ought to be two or three kinds of strokes alternating--one stroke with a
+rifled or wavy surface under the rammer--and the next stroke with a
+_plane_ surface. . . . What sort of witchcraft enters into the effect of
+_high frequency blows_ as compared with blows with a little longer
+intervals between? Do the strokes create also some 'magnetic' effect in
+the pounded earth-mass which helps to fasten the particles to each
+other? And does this magnetic charge or friction heat, or whatever it
+is, act more promptly if one keeps on 'striking the iron while hot,'
+instead of letting the charge 'evaporate' and sneak away between
+strokes? Two or three of my hairs are turning grey over these questions
+alone. You compliment me by insinuating that I might stumble across some
+fruitful idea for the forms or boxes if I speculate a little more on the
+key-problem. Well, the thing won't leave me alone, so I have thought out
+several foolish variations and rejected them too. But the last one seems
+to have a little more vitality, so if it will live till I write my next
+letter I will tell you about it. One is so apt to follow the temptation
+of 'perfecting' an apparatus--at the cost of getting away from keeping
+it cheap, simple--and 'fool-proof.' By this time the idea has grown ripe
+in my mind, so that I ought to write out a little book on the pise
+problem in Swedish and have it printed before springtime. Something
+ought to be done. . . . I have to ask you kindly to permit me to make
+use of the data contained in your book. To this I will have to add what
+special precautions we must observe as to foundations in a climate like
+ours. I intend to treat only the pise method. Cob and chalk methods are
+not applicable here, as we have such materials only in a few unimportant
+spots."
+
+Mr. Ellington has long been an admirer and a firm friend of England, and
+he is good enough to regard his country as indebted to ours for the
+introduction of pise-building:
+
+"Let me tell you that the help you are giving me now--not me, but my
+nation--will work as an additional bond that draws us more closely
+towards each other. . . . Some of our people here have always looked too
+much towards the South and too little towards the West."
+
+
+    [Headnote: A Pise-Builder's School]
+
+  PISE, PRACTICE AND PLANT
+
+Now that so many able architects and enterprising bodies are seriously
+taking up pise-building, the improvement in plant and technique should
+be both rapid and considerable. The School of Pise Building established
+at Hornchurch in Essex, by the Imperial Ex-service Association, should
+alone provide us with much new and valuable knowledge of a highly
+practical kind.
+
+It is there, for instance, that various types of shuttering and rammers
+are being experimentally tested side by side, and their relative
+efficiency under varying conditions ascertained. Under some conditions
+it is probable that the floor and roof timbers (destined for use in the
+house under construction) will be found the most economical and
+satisfactory form of temporary "shuttering" for the making of the earth
+walls.
+
+The pise "Test-House," built by Messrs. Alban Richards at their Ashstead
+works, was built in this way, and proved highly satisfactory.
+
+Another effective and more generally applicable form of shuttering
+(designed and manufactured by the same firm) is illustrated in the
+diagram reproduced below. It should be observed that wedges intervene
+between the movable shutters and the uprights.
+
+The method of employment of the "Mark V" shuttering is well illustrated
+by the bird's-eye view showing the Newlands cottage under construction.
+
+    [Headnote: Alternative Shutterings]
+
+In this matter of shuttering there is still, however, great scope for
+improvement, and it may be hoped that soon ingenuity and experience will
+jointly produce a complete pise plant perfectly fulfilling all the many
+conditions enumerated earlier in the book.
+
+Shuttering made by riveting plain galvanised sheet iron to one side of a
+corrugated sheet has the qualities of lightness, smoothness, cheapness,
+and rigidity, and the claims of the inventor and patentee are now being
+put to the test in actual building.
+
+  [Illustration: PATENT SHUTTERING FOR PISE DE TERRE
+  _By W. Alban Richards and Co._]
+
+There now seems little doubt but that pise blocks will be largely used
+for partitions and chimney stacks where the soil is good enough, and
+experiments are being made with a view to discovering the best and
+cheapest way of making earth slabs similar to those of coke-breeze and
+concrete.
+
+The size aimed at is 18 in. by 18 in. by 3 in., the edges to be tongued
+and grooved.
+
+Certain "concrete" machines seem to lend themselves to adaptation for
+the making of earth blocks, but it is necessary to remember that sharp
+blows are required rather than a steady pressure, and also that we are
+working with a _dry_ material. The ordinary primitive way of making pise
+blocks is indicated below.
+
+The hand-rammers are undoubtedly worth study and careful design. A set
+of three seems to meet all ordinary requirements, and those shown on p.
+101 may be taken as typical. They should be of hard-wood, smoothly
+finished, and provided with long handles. They should be 9 in. to 12 in.
+long, and about 5 in. by 4 in. at maximum cross section.
+
+In the sketch they are shown "narrow-ways-on." No. 1 is used for
+preliminary pounding and final finishing, No. 2 for general
+consolidating, and No. 3 for working along the edges, against window
+stops, and under cross-ties.
+
+A South African correspondent, Major Baylay, makes interesting comment
+as regards rammers and local pise practice:
+
+    [Headnote: South Africa]
+
+"My experience of all black labour is, that they won't put any 'guts'
+into it. They therefore want fairly heavy rammers, which they can lift
+and drop, say a foot, and which will do the rest for them. The heat of
+the sun and extreme dryness of atmosphere out here make it advisable to
+cover up completed courses at once with sacking, moist for choice,
+otherwise it is liable to dry out too quickly and crack. It dries out
+uncovered at night very well, when there is no rain.
+
+"The red loams of South Africa, where not too sandy, make excellent
+pise. They or their equivalent are found almost everywhere. In the dry
+state they set so hard that moisture added just before ramming is
+useless. A large heap must be made, well damped and covered over with
+moist sacking, and left until the moisture is distributed throughout the
+mass. When about four or five days old, in ordinary weather, the earth
+is ready to use--viz., just wet enough to bind when gripped in the hand.
+It should be passed through a sieve. I use a sort of 'chicken run,'
+8 ft. long, and throw the earth on to it before using. Six feet of it is
+1/2-in. mesh, and 2 ft. 1/4-in. mesh; the reason for this is that, if
+the earth is a little too dry, it does not always bind well with the
+previous layer. Therefore, put a few petrol tins of the fine earth into
+the shuttering first in order to ensure good bond, and throw the coarser
+stuff in after."
+
+  [Illustration: PISE HAND RAMMERS]
+
+
+  _Second Note by Major Baylay, Peter Maritzburg, Natal, South Africa_
+
+"I have completed a small building, and though weather conditions have
+been as bad as possible, it is sound and very satisfactory.
+
+"In my opinion, pise-building should not be attempted in the rainy
+season in Africa. Earth contains too much moisture, and the power of the
+sun dries it out too quickly and causes cracks.
+
+"_Re_ plastering. I covered the outside and inside with a mixture of 6
+earth, 2 sand, 1 blue (Hyd.) lime, the earth being the red, rather 'fat'
+earth found everywhere, and the same stuff the house is built of. It is
+put on thin with a trowel, after damping the wall. When it dries and
+cracks, rub all over with a sacking pad covered with the plaster
+mixture, but wetted to a thin cream consistency. It may sound an odd
+method, but the natives do this work well, and the result is as good as
+one can wish for. You can put tar or any wash (No. 6) on this."
+
+
+    [Headnote: Soils]
+
+  SOILS
+
+Were it not for the fact (often somewhat embarrassing) that soil quite
+incapable of making good pise will none the less produce enthusiastic
+pise-builders, a warning as to the vital importance of the earth being
+really suitable might seem superfluous.
+
+The author has found some of the staunchest champions of pise-building
+living on and valiantly struggling with stiff glutinous clay and almost
+pure sand.
+
+Even the most vigorous optimism can achieve little under such adverse
+conditions unless soil-blending be resorted to, and even so,
+pise-building begins to lose points in the matter of economy directly
+complications of this sort are introduced.
+
+Fortunately, however, England is well off in the matter of pise soils,
+the red marls being amongst the very best.
+
+A study of the country, or, failing that, of the geological maps, will
+reveal a great tract of this earth extending diagonally right across
+England, from Yorkshire down into Devonshire, where it ends
+conspicuously in the beautiful red cliffs about Torquay.
+
+There is a large area of the stuff in the Midlands, notably in
+Warwickshire, with lesser patches here and there about the country.
+
+Second only to the red marls come the brick earths, which, fortunately,
+are also widely distributed.
+
+"Brick earth" is merely clay that has been well weathered and
+disintegrated under the action of wind, rain, frost, and organic agents,
+the sulphides having become oxides, and what was a cold intractable
+slithery mass having become merely a "strong" and binding earth.
+
+It is probable that even stiff clay, if dug in the summer or autumn, and
+left exposed for a winter, would prove sufficiently reformed to be quite
+amenable for pise building in the spring.
+
+After the marls and the brick earths there is an endless variety of
+soils that will serve well for pise-building--some, of course, better
+than others, but all, save the extremes (the excessively light and the
+excessively clayey), capable of giving good results under proper
+treatment.
+
+Before putting pise construction actually in hand, however, the
+intending builder will do well to submit samples of his earth to some
+competent authority, that they may receive his blessing.
+
+A fistful taken from a depth of 9 in., and another from say 2 ft. below
+the surface, should give sufficient evidence as to the soil's
+suitability or the reverse.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+_CHALK_
+
+
+Sec. I. GENERAL
+
+Chalk, as a source of lime, has always been of high importance to
+builders, and, until improved transport brought alien materials into its
+old preserves, chalk was in general use for walling in the form of
+roughly squared blocks.
+
+Chalk again forms the basis of a compost that, used in the form of a
+stiff paste, has been largely employed for building from the earliest
+times down to the present.
+
+"Pise de Craie," or chalk consolidated by ramming within a casing, is a
+form of building that has been long held in high repute in France and
+elsewhere, but which has only recently been given a serious trial in
+England.
+
+Chalk in all these forms, if fairly dealt with and reasonably protected
+from the weather, is a most amenable and satisfactory material to build
+with.
+
+The last-named method particularly seems to promise results that should
+satisfy the most exacting critics of the unconventional, as it assuredly
+does those who inhabit the cottages so constructed.
+
+The several systems of chalk construction are fully dealt with in the
+pages that follow.
+
+_Chalk Compost: Historical._--At the Ancient British village on West
+Down, Chilbolton, some five miles south of Andover, delving
+archaeologists have brought to light undeniable fragments of chalk
+"Daub," with the wattle marks still clearly showing upon them.
+
+This discovery is chiefly of academic interest, though it is a pretty
+refutation to those who regard any building material save brick and
+stone as "new-fangled," and it should also serve to hearten the doubters
+and the timid amongst us who seek historic sanction for any departure
+from current building practice.
+
+_Composition and Uses._--In the Andover district Chalk Compost or "Chalk
+Mud," as it is called locally, is prepared and used as follows:
+
+The chalk is dug out in the autumn, and the frost allowed to play on it
+during the winter. In the spring building starts, and the weathered
+chalk is spread all around the outside of the walls. Straw is sprinkled
+on it and it is then well trodden, usually by the workers, but sometimes
+by horses. Sometimes chopped straw is added, sometimes unchopped straw
+is sprinkled on. The quality of the walls depends very largely on the
+preparation--that is, in getting the mud to the right consistency--and
+the old hands know by experience when it is ready.
+
+The compost is lifted on the wall by a fork and another man stands on
+the wall and treads it in. It is then chopped down straight with a
+spade. Some of the naked walls at Andover show traces of the courses,
+which are usually something under 2 ft. in height.
+
+Where a course has to be left unfinished it should be ended with a
+diagonal ramp so as to splice in with the work that follows.
+
+Some of the old builders seem to have been somewhat catholic in their
+conceptions as to what constituted "chalk," and vague patches of earth,
+loose flints and other stray substances not infrequently mar their work
+and sometimes seriously reduce its strength.
+
+As a general rule, the finer the chalk the stronger and more durable is
+the walling.
+
+What is aimed at is a conglomerate of small chalk knobs cemented
+together by a matrix of plastic chalk and straw, the whole forming as
+dense a mass as possible.
+
+Grinding in a mortar-mill would probably reduce all the chalk to an
+amorphous powder, which would not be desirable, and in any case such
+mechanical mixing is quite unnecessary.
+
+Building by ramming the moist compost between timber shutterings does
+not appear to have been practised in the past, though there is nothing
+against the method except its tendency to delay the drying out.
+
+The drying of each course takes several days, depending on the weather.
+A course is usually laid right round the building. It must be covered up
+at night in case of rain, and when it is hard another course is laid on,
+and so on till completion. The aim is to build during the summer and
+autumn, and when the moisture has dried out, to render the exterior.
+
+Where brickwork is used with chalk compost it is generally bonded in in
+the ordinary way, but block-bonding the depth of a chalk course is a
+better way of doing it.
+
+The exterior corners of chalk buildings are the vulnerable points, and
+these should therefore be well rounded off.
+
+_Timber._--In the old work nothing seems to have been done to prevent
+woodwork built in to the compost from decaying, though in many cases it
+has survived surprisingly. In any new work, however, proper ventilated
+air-spaces should be contrived or the timber ends treated with some
+preservative.
+
+The door and window frames are fixed to fairly large pieces of wood
+built in across the thickness of wall, and other woodwork is fixed to
+wood blocks built in in a similar way.
+
+Picture-rails should be provided in all rooms, as chalk walls are apt to
+flake and chip if nails are driven into them.
+
+Lintels are usually of wood, and when plastering is carried down over
+these some form of key must of course be provided to hold it.
+
+    [Headnote: Winter Work Barred]
+
+_Frost._--New work must not be exposed to frost or there will be danger
+of collapse, and winter work is barred out for this reason.
+
+_Repairs._--Chalk compost walls are not easily repaired in that
+material, and bricks are generally used, well bonded in.
+
+_Chimneys._--Chimneys, too, are usually of brick, though there would
+seem no reason against the flues being carried up in chalk, especially
+if clay pipe linings were used.
+
+The chimney-stacks above the roof might well be built in flint, the
+corners being rounded off in deference to the peculiarities of the
+material.
+
+_External Rendering._--It is of the first importance that a good
+weather-tight skin be maintained, and many old buildings have suffered
+through neglect of this precaution.
+
+The rendering was often of the poorest quality, more mud than lime, and
+the constant repairs that the indifferent materials necessitated has
+resulted in many of the old cottages becoming patchworks of variegated
+plaster blotches, when not whitewashed over, which give an impression of
+dilapidation by no means warranted by the facts.
+
+_Rendering._--Given a good skin, however, of cement or cement and lime,
+a chalk conglomerate wall will last indefinitely. So vital is the skin
+that it is as well to put it on in two good coats--rounding off all the
+corners and finishing it either with slap-dash or rough from the wooden
+float.
+
+Also, to ensure its proper adhesion throughout, wire-netting may be used
+as reinforcement--being secured to the face of the chalk wall by means
+of cross netting or wires laid on the wall as the building rises.
+
+If the netting be of a fine mesh it also serves as an absolute barrier
+to vermin, though pounded glass incorporated in the base of the wall is
+equally effective.
+
+_Strength._--Provided the wall has dried out thoroughly, any of the
+ordinary loads occurring in a two-storied house can be borne with ease.
+
+Chalk conglomerate walling, however, has no great lateral strength, and
+it should not be asked to stand up to thrusts.
+
+The roof, therefore, must be well tied, and should sit on the building
+merely as a lid.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Details of Chalk Construction at Amesbury.+
+  (From a sketch by W. R. Jaggard, F.R.I.B.A., the copyright of
+  the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.)]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Chalk Construction at Amesbury, Wilts.+
+  (From a sketch by W. R. Jaggard, F.R.I.B.A., the copyright of
+  the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.)]
+
+_Roof._--Though thatch is the traditional roofing material of chalk
+cottages, any other will serve that is permanent and good of its kind.
+
+The only special demand that chalk walls make is that the eaves shall be
+generously overhung for their better protection from the weather.
+
+Where, in later years, the boldly projecting thatch has been
+thoughtlessly replaced by a slate roof with meagre eaves, or with none
+at all, the walls have suffered accordingly.
+
+    [Headnote: Garden Walls]
+
+_Garden Walls._--A chalk garden wall must be afforded just as much
+protection as the wall of a house and on both sides.
+
+The hat with which it is provided is of the highest importance to the
+health and longevity of the walling.
+
+Examples of garden wall copings are given in the sketches shown below.
+
+  [Illustration: WALL COPINGS.]
+
+_House Walls._--Chalk conglomerate walls rarely exceed 18 in. in
+thickness, and are usually the same upstairs as down.
+
+A plinth of the same thickness as the chalk wall it supports is usually
+carried up 6 in. to 18 in. above the ground level in rubble-work, flint,
+or brick, being known as the "Underpin Course." Any of the stock
+damp-courses are suitable, but they must be well and truly laid, as damp
+feet are nearly as deleterious to a chalk wall as a leaky or inadequate
+hat.
+
+No special tools are required for this method of building, an ordinary
+farm fork for lifting and a spade for the final chopping down of the
+wall faces being all that are necessary.
+
+A house built during the summer is usually fit for occupation the same
+autumn.
+
+_Old Examples._--Those who may wish to see buildings in chalk
+conglomerate, both old and new, would do well to visit some such typical
+chalk district as that lying about Andover in Wiltshire.
+
+It should, however, be constantly borne in mind that most of the old
+cottages were somewhat unscientifically erected by their original
+jack-of-all-trades occupiers, that damp-courses and Portland cement were
+unknown, and that the advantages of proper ventilation and the causes of
+dry-rot were discoveries yet to be made.
+
+Secondly, a large number of these cottages have been sadly neglected
+either recently or in the past, and they bear the disfiguring marks of
+their ill-treatment upon them now.
+
+But a chalk cottage that is well found in the beginning, and that is
+reasonably well cared for subsequently, has nothing to fear from
+comparison with cottages built in the most approved manner of the more
+fashionable materials.
+
+Mr. James Thorold gives the following particulars of a block of three
+chalk cottages recently built for Sir George Cooper on his estate at
+Hursley, near Winchester:
+
+"The chalk walling was done by Messrs. A. Annett and Son, of Winterslow,
+near Salisbury, where this method of building has been kept alive from
+olden days. It consists of working up the soft upper strata of the chalk
+by putting a bed of it 4 ft. 6 in. thick on the ground, watering and
+treading it to a sticky consistency with the feet, working in shortish
+straw at the same time. When thoroughly mixed by the builder's mate, he
+lifts up a forkful to the builder working on the wall immediately above
+him, the latter catches the chalk, dumps it down on the top of the wall,
+building an 18 in. course all round. As soon as the weather has dried
+this sufficiently he goes round with a sharp spade squaring up both
+sides of the wall. As this work is greatly dependent on the weather it
+is well if the men have other work to fall back on, and that building
+operations should be commenced in the spring or early summer. The wall
+is built 18 in. thick to the first floor joists and 14 in. above. Chalk
+in itself being very absorbent of moisture, the usual plan is to render
+the outside of the wall with a lime mortar, which, however, requires
+renewal every few years. To obviate this we fixed with long staples
+1-1/4 in. mesh wire-netting over the outside surface of the wall to give
+a reinforcement for a rendering of hair mortar and cement gauged in
+proportion of 1 to 2 respectively, and left rough from the trowel. This
+rendering was done at a cost of 3s. 3-1/2d. per square yard, which is a
+substantial addition to the cost of the walling, but so far there is no
+sign of a crack or hollow place behind it, and the cottages have kept
+very dry. The walls were finished off with a limewash containing Russian
+tallow and copperas.[9]
+
+    [Footnote 9: See recipes for Whitewash in Appendix (I).]
+
+    [Headnote: Cost of Three Cottages]
+
+"As regards the cost of this block of three cottages, the result is
+obscured by the fact that tall chimney-stacks with ornamental bricks and
+appropriate foundations were built and reinforced leaded lights were
+used in the windows to keep the building in character with the other
+cottages on the estate, but at the time we estimated that the chalk
+walling saved a sum of L54 as against the amount we should have had to
+have spent in carrying out the building with bricks made on the estate,
+and this had to include lodging money and profit, the builders being
+independent men. The ornamental chimney-stacks were put in for the sake
+of appearance, flues built up in the chalk being entirely satisfactory
+and fireproof. The foundations are either flint or brick with a slate
+damp-course.
+
+"I consider that for a chalk country this method of building has many
+advantages.
+
+  "(1) It saves cartage.
+
+  "(2) It can be carried out by a skilled labourer who can be
+    otherwise employed during unsuitable weather.
+
+  "(3) No fuel is required as in burning bricks.
+
+  "(4) If a suitable rendering is employed to keep it weatherproof,
+    and a good damp-course on the foundations, the cottages are nice
+    and dry and keep an equable temperature, chalk being a good
+    non-conductor.
+
+"Sir George wonders if any method could be devised by chemical means to
+harden the chalk and make it weatherproof; if this could be done it
+might save the expense of the cement rendering."
+
+
+  CHALK CONGLOMERATE
+
+  From _Country Life_, February 23rd, 1901:
+
+"Soft chalk is practically mud, yet Dr. Poore, one leading authority on
+rural hygiene, had his model hygienic cottage built with it at Andover,
+just outside the boundaries, in order to escape the tyranny of the
+bye-laws. In several other places this material has been used time out
+of mind.
+
+"The white cottages on the Wiltshire Downs are as good as any in
+England."
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Three Chalk Cottages at Hursley Park+]
+
+
+  THE WINTERSLOW COTTAGES
+
+  From _Country Life_, April 6th, 1901:
+
+"The white chalk cottages of the scattered straggling village are found
+in every sort of position. They must not be confounded with the cottages
+of rock chalk at Medmenham. You might almost call them mud cottages.
+
+"The house is generally both planned and constructed by the owner.
+
+". . . The soil is only a few inches deep, soft chalk lies close to the
+surface and can be dug out with a spade. This is a very suitable
+material in the district and costs nothing but the labour of
+digging. . . .
+
+"On the downs there is a constant lack of water; that which falls in the
+shape of rain is therefore very precious, and in some cases is indeed
+the only kind available. But a large tank or artificial well is needed
+to contain it, and the pit from which the chalk is dug out can be made
+to serve the purpose. . . . One was made watertight by means of a lining
+of concrete, and held enough water to keep the family going through all
+the dry season.
+
+"In another house . . . the chalk-pit had been utilised to form a large
+and convenient cellar. . . .
+
+"Most of them (the cottages) . . . are on two floors, with parlour,
+kitchen, back kitchen and so forth on one, and the bedrooms on the
+other. In the preparation of the chalk, the method followed is that of
+treading it into a kind of rubble, and adding a proportion of straw and
+a small quantity of lime.
+
+    [Headnote: Expensive Scaffolding Avoided]
+
+"There is a local builder who will run up the shell of a house for a
+matter of L100, more or less, according to its size. . . . Most of the
+cottages are literally hand-made. A skilful architect who visited the
+Winterslow cottages felt sure that boards must be used to keep the walls
+straight, but he was wrong. The chalk is shovelled up and the walls are
+kept straight without line or plummet. No expensive scaffolding or
+machinery is employed. Yet the walls come out beautifully in the end,
+the colour being an exquisite soft white. They are about 18 in. thick,
+and the slowness of their construction has one good effect, it gives
+them time to dry. No point is of more importance than this. It is
+advisable not to put on any rough-cast, plaster, or paper for at least
+twelve months, as doing so will prevent the moisture from exuding. One
+or two of the little cottages were slightly damp, but the majority were
+as dry as tinder. The thickness of the walls helps to render the cottage
+more comfortable, to make it cool in summer and dry in winter.
+
+"One word should be added in regard to soft chalk as a building
+material. Where it can be obtained in the garden at a few inches depth,
+and especially where the cottager is his own architect and builder, it
+can be most heartily recommended, but there are obvious objections to
+its transportation to districts where it is foreign.
+
+"The village itself is a very homely and irregular one without a single
+dwelling of any pretence. The country lying adjacent to Salisbury Plain
+consists of broken, sparsely peopled downland, and very ornate or
+finished cottages would be out of keeping, but they would not look so
+well copied in a very rich, heavily timbered country."
+
+
+  RATS AND CHALK
+
+_Note._--Conglomerate chalk is, like cob, vulnerable to the attacks of a
+really determined rat.
+
+The outer defences provided by the exterior rendering can be backed up
+by the mixing in of broken glass or sharp flints with the substance of
+the wall, where such attacks are likely.
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Marsh Court, Hampshire.+]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Brick-and-chalk Vaulting at the Deanery Garden, Sonning+]
+
+
+    [Headnote: Block Chalk]
+
+  BLOCK CHALK
+
+"Chalk" is a term somewhat loosely used to denote the soft white
+limestone--the "_Creta Scriptoria_"--that is cousin to Marl on one side
+and to Ragstone on the other.
+
+In its purest form chalk consists of over 95 per cent. of carbonate of
+lime in the form of fine granular particles held together by a
+calcareous cement, its organic origin being clearly traced in the
+remains of the minute sea creatures with which it abounds.
+
+Hewn blocks of chalk have been used for walling and vaulting from
+immemorial times, and, where not exposed to direct erosion by the
+weather, remain to this day as clean-cut as when they were first
+quarried and a very great deal harder.
+
+The filling in of the great vaults at Salisbury Cathedral and in the
+Bishop's Palace are of chalk, whilst innumerable lesser buildings of
+more or less antiquity still remain to us as monuments to the excellence
+and durability of this stone.
+
+Chalk, too, was often used in combination with flint or brick to build
+the engaging chequer-work walls that embellish so many downland
+villages.
+
+At Medmenham there are cottages both old and new of hewn rock chalk, and
+both the Berks and Bucks banks of the Thames have many buildings to show
+of this beautiful material.
+
+Amongst present-day architects Sir Edwin Lutyens was the first to give
+hewn chalk an opportunity of showing its quality in serious
+architecture, Marsh Court in Hampshire being an instance of more than
+local celebrity.
+
+In the great walls at the Bishop of Winchester's palace, Farnham Castle
+in Surrey, the old builders appear to have used bricks, limestone and
+chalk proper, according as the several materials were delivered, quite
+indifferently, and with results altogether delightful.
+
+Not all chalk is suitable for building, that near the surface being
+often far gone in decay and much too friable for such a purpose.
+
+Even when apparently sound blocks have been gotten they are not
+infrequently found to be crossed in all directions by planes of weakness
+along which they are apt to fall to pieces in the handling.
+
+From this cause the "waste" is sometimes considerable.
+
+The well-known building "stones" from the quarries of Beer, Sutton, and
+Tottenhoe in Devonshire are really chalk, but in a form not readily
+distinguishable from ordinary free-stone.
+
+The longer that chalk blocks are kept to dry before building-in the
+better, and the sun and wind of at least a year should be allowed free
+play upon them to dry out their natural sap and render them
+"frost-proof."
+
+During the drying-out process the chalk should, if possible, be
+protected from the rain.
+
+For years after being built into the walls of a house, chalk will
+continue to dry and harden.
+
+But it is essentially a somewhat porous material, and will quickly
+revenge itself on those neglecting its just demands for a sound roof and
+a proper damp-course.
+
+In exposed situations new chalk walling is liable to allow the
+penetration of moisture under the pressure of the wind unless a cavity
+is provided or unless the surface is treated with a silicate or other
+"vitrifying" fluid.
+
+Chalk, however, has one shining virtue in common with its great
+antithesis--it improves mightily with keeping.
+
+Chalk walls sometimes have youthful vices in the way of porosity that
+entirely disappear with advancing years through the closing up of the
+surface pores, which eventually makes a cavity and inner lining
+superfluous.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+_UNBURNED CLAY AND EARTH BRICKS_
+
+
+  SUN-DRIED BRICKS
+
+The use of sun-dried bricks in this country, is, for no very apparent
+reason, almost entirely restricted to East Anglia. There it has been
+used for generations with entirely satisfactory results.
+
+Mr. Skipper of Norwich writes of the material as follows:
+
+   *   *   *
+
+"Who, travelling from Norfolk to London, whether by the Ipswich or
+Cambridge line, has not noticed the numerous colour-washed or black
+(tarred) cottage, farmhouse and agricultural buildings scattered
+practically all along the countryside? Some of these are of studwork and
+plaster, some of wattle and daub, but many are built of clay made up
+into lumps, sun-dried, and built into the walls with a soft clay-mixture
+as mortar. No lime _need_ be used, though sometimes it is mixed with the
+clay mortar. The preparation, digging, exposure and mixing with short
+straw are similar to the Devonshire 'cob' work, but in these parts the
+worked clay is thrown into moulds, and lumps are formed of, say, 18 in.
+by 12 in. by 6 in., or 18 in. by 9 in. by 6 in. for large sizes, and for
+inside walling or backing to brick-faced walls, 18 in. by 6 in. by 6 in.
+The walls, naturally, are rough in texture and the joints are generally
+stopped up and besmeared with a thin coating or almost a wash of clay.
+This coating sometimes has lime mixed with it, but it is not necessary.
+This is all that is needed to complete the walling, and there is a
+building--a malting, that any one can see at Tivetshall Station on the
+Ipswich line, about 200 ft. long, 45 ft. or 50 ft. wide and three floors
+high, built of lumps 18 in. by 12 in. by 6 in.--that has stood the
+weather and weight of its roof for forty years built in this way; 12 in.
+is the thickness of its walls. A further stage in finish is to give the
+walls two or three coats of coal tar, but it is not essential, though
+desirable where stock are kept, as cattle are rather fond of licking the
+clay, and they do not use their horns much when walls are tarred. The
+highest finish in this work is to cast sand on the last coating of tar
+before it is quite dry, and then to colour or whitewash on this. This
+accounts for the variety of colourings seen in these buildings, some
+even of a kind of pink or red; while some yellow or buff, beside the
+white and the black or tarred buildings, and all huddled together or
+standing apart, whether covered with thatch or red pan or flat tiles,
+look remarkably in harmony with their surroundings. These lump walls
+are, of course, built on a base of brickwork, about 18 in. or 2 ft.
+high, to keep them free from damp. This kind of walling can be built for
+_at least_ 15 per cent. or 20 per cent. cheaper than ordinary 9 in.
+brickwork. Thin as these walls are compared with those of 'cob' houses,
+they are noted for being warm in winter and cool in summer. When
+suitable clay is procurable a local builder almost invariably uses clay
+lumps when building a house for himself, though to gratify a whim
+perhaps, he will case the outside walls--especially the front next the
+street or road--with brickwork. But clay lumps he carefully reserves for
+inside walls and weight-carrying linings to the outside walls, bonding
+the two together very much in the same way as two 4-1/2 in. 'cavity
+walls' are bonded. I am not suggesting that this walling is as
+interesting artistically as 'cob,' but I do suggest it is a practical,
+sensible and _dry_ walling, and if properly done it will 'last for
+ever,' as a local builder repeatedly said to me when speaking of it.
+One can easily see why the cost is light--the sun and the winds do the
+drying in the spring months, and no coals are required, and also the
+clay is often found on the building site, hence no cartage. Actual
+building work naturally goes quickly, as the lumps are large. There is
+another important point to notice. One may see a building complete with
+its roof on and occupied by its tenant while still awaiting an outside
+casing of brickwork to be built round it, either with a view to greater
+protection or for the mere vanity of the owner, for while thus left
+unprotected the lump walls take no harm from even winter exposure. Now
+to be quite practical in these extremely practical days, I venture to
+suggest that the use of clay lumps at least for inside walls and
+linings of outside walls would be an immense boon to the numerous
+cottage-building schemes now being projected. We must not forget that
+comparatively few bricks will be available this year, while the cottages
+are wanted at once. Can these few bricks be better used than by forming
+foundations and chimneys for the clay-lump walls of these cottages? I
+think not. The cottages could, of course, be occupied in the late summer
+or autumn of this year, and next year when bricks will be more plentiful
+perhaps the brick casings could be added, if brickwork _must_ complete
+them. I make this strictly utilitarian suggestion solely to meet a very
+urgent and deep national need. Personally, I prefer the sight of a
+cottage built and finished in the old-established method of the
+locality. Unskilled labour only is required, working under intelligent
+supervision, hence immediate employment for a great number of men would
+be provided."
+
+    [Headnote: Use for Unskilled Labour]
+
+   *   *   *
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Once Corn Hall, now Council School.+
+  Built about a hundred years ago. Still in sound condition
+  and quite dry.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +A Row of Clay-lump Cottages.+
+  The front has been plastered and panelled out. In the upper part
+  of the stable building, seen in the foreground, the clay-lumps
+  are shown exposed.]
+
+  [Illustration:
+  +Engineering Workshops.+
+  Built twenty years ago. The walls are thoroughly sound, despite
+  constant vibration, and are perfectly dry, except the brick face,
+  which was added for effect.]
+
+The use of sun-dried bricks for the interior partitions of cob and pise
+cottages is worth consideration, as the nature of these materials
+demands a thickness of wall which is too wasteful of space to be
+acceptable in mere partitioning.
+
+Of the strength of clay-lump walls, there is no question. It was
+recently necessary to cut a new doorway in the old clay-lump wall of a
+large traction-engine garage, and the blocks removed were thrown into a
+heap upon the ground.
+
+The clay happened to be needed for other purposes, for which it had
+first to be broken up.
+
+Ordinary hammers proved entirely ineffective, and it was not until heavy
+sledges were used that the lumps could be smashed.
+
+The tractor-house in question is a large building some 25 ft. by 100
+ft., carrying a heavy roof and constantly subjected to vibration by the
+coming and going of the tractors.
+
+The walls are only 12 in. thick, without piers or reinforcements of any
+kind, and yet the whole building, which is 26 ft, high at the gables, is
+as perfect to-day as when first erected some twenty years ago.
+
+In the same town as this tractor-house, East Harling in Norfolk, is a
+council school built of clay lump (converted from the old Corn Hall),
+apparently not a pin the worse for a century of hard wear.
+
+Near by there are a number of private houses built of the same material,
+some of them reputed to be upwards of 200 years old and certain of them
+having considerable architectural merit.
+
+
+    [Headnote: "Substantial and Cool"]
+
+(_Extract from "The Farmers' Handbook," issued by the Department of
+Agriculture, New South Wales, 1911_)
+
++"Adobe," or Sun-dried Bricks+
+
+"As their name implies, these buildings are constructed of sun-dried,
+but unburnt bricks. For buildings of this character, material like clay,
+which is unsuitable for pise-work, can be used. The bricks are made in a
+wooden mould, and are 16 in. long, 8 in. wide, and 6 in. thick. A man
+can mould about 100 per day. They are laid in a similar manner to other
+bricks, the mortar used being wet loam, or even the material of which
+the bricks are made. The cost of making and laying is estimated at about
+15s. per 100. Buildings constructed of these bricks are substantial and
+cool, and very similar in character to pise buildings.
+
+"A school-house built of these bricks eighteen years ago by Mr. Nixon,
+of Reefton, is still in an excellent state of preservation; in fact,
+little, if any, the worse for wear, despite the fact that walls are
+unprotected by verandahs or overhanging eaves. During its existence it
+has had, first one coat of oil-paint, and later a coat of coloured
+limewash."
+
+   *   *   *
+
+"Clay lump," then, is one of the many good old building methods that
+needs no proving, but only revival and perhaps improvement.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+  I
+
+  WHITEWASH
+
+Whitewashing has been frequently referred to in the foregoing pages as
+the most suitable treatment for the exterior of chalk and earth
+buildings.
+
+There is, however, a certain prejudice against lime-whiting amongst both
+owners and occupiers, owing to the frequent renewal that its adoption
+usually implies.
+
+With a view to removing this drawback from a treatment otherwise so
+effective, the following recipes are suggested as improvements on the
+usual practice.
+
+Ordinary whitewash is made by slaking about 10 lbs. of quicklime with
+two gallons of water.
+
+The following recipes are taken from "_White Paints and Painting_"
+(Scott), and are reliable:
+
+(1) "_Factory" Whitewash (interiors), for Walls, Ceilings, Posts, etc._:
+
+  (_a_) 62 lbs. (1 bushel) quicklime, slake with 15 gallons water.
+    Keep barrel covered till steam ceases to arise. Stir occasionally
+    to prevent scorching.
+
+  (_b_) 2-1/2 lbs. rye-flour, beat up in 1/2 gallon of cold water, then
+    add 2 gallons boiling water.
+
+  (_c_) 2-1/2 lbs. of common rock-salt, dissolve in 2-1/2 gallons of hot
+    water.
+
+Mix (_b_) and (_c_), then pour into (_a_), and stir until all is well
+mixed. This is the whitewash used in the large implement factories, and
+recommended by the insurance companies. The above formula gives a
+product of perfect brush consistency.
+
+(2) _"Weatherproof" Whitewash (exteriors), for Buildings, Fences, etc._:
+
+  (_a_) 62 lbs. (1 bushel) quicklime, slake with 12 gallons of hot
+    water.
+
+  (_b_) 2 lbs. common table salt, 1 lb. sulphate of zinc, dissolved
+    in a gallon of boiling water.
+
+  (_c_) 2 gallons skimmed milk.
+
+Pour (_b_) into (_a_), then add the milk (_c_), and mix thoroughly.
+
+(3) _"Light House" Whitewash_:
+
+  (_a_) 62 lbs. (1 bushel) quicklime, slake with 12 gallons of
+    hot water.
+
+  (_b_) 12 gallons rock-salt, dissolve in 6 gallons of boiling water.
+
+  (_c_) 6 lbs. of Portland cement.
+
+Pour (_b_) into (_a_), and then add (_c_).
+
+   *   *   *
+
+_Note._--Alum added to a lime whitewash prevents it rubbing off. An
+ounce to the gallon is sufficient.
+
+Flour paste answers the same purpose, but needs zinc sulphate as a
+preservative.
+
+The following are from "_1,000 More Paint Questions Answered_":
+
+(4) _Durable Whitewash for Outside Use._--A whitewash that will not rub
+off or wash off in rainy weather can be made by mixing one half-pint of
+flour to a batter with cold water, then stirring into this boiling water
+until it becomes a thick paste.
+
+While still hot it is poured into a pailful of ready-made lime whitewash
+and well stirred in.
+
+(5) Another simple method is to add to 2 gallons of ready-made lime
+whitewash one half-pint each of molasses and table salt. Must be stirred
+frequently while being used.
+
+_Whitewash for Exterior Surfaces._--A formula for a durable whitewash
+for out-buildings of rough lumber. The following is reprinted from
+"_Popular Mechanics_":
+
+(6) Place 1 bushel good fresh lime in a barrel with 20 lbs. beef tallow;
+slake with hot water and cover with sackcloth to keep in steam. When the
+lime is slaked, the tallow will have disappeared, having formed a
+chemical compound with the lime. Dry colours may be added to produce any
+tint desired.[10]
+
+    [Footnote 10: Experiments and tests carried out for the author
+    by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research place
+    this receipt at the head of the list.]
+
+It is better to add colour before slaking the lime, but if this is not
+feasible mix the colour with alcohol and add it to the strained
+whitewash. Thin to easy flowing consistency with clear water.
+
+    [Headnote: Distempers and Limewashes]
+
+_Cold Water Paint that will stand the Weather._--A formula for making a
+white outside coating that will resist the action of the weather and
+remain hard even under the influence of moisture and rain. Experiments
+with different brands of cold water paints have proved failures.
+
+A really effective cold water paint, in order to resist the elements and
+remain white, should contain a white pigment of good body and some oil
+in addition to the water, and with this purpose in view the following is
+suggested:
+
+(7) To make 100 lbs. of such paint, mix 10 lbs. white, pure in oil, with
+10 lbs. bolted whiting, 8 lbs. raw linseed oil, 6 lbs. soft soap (made
+with potash), and 26 lbs. soft water.
+
+One quart of pale copal varnish will improve the preparation. The
+formula given is of the right consistency to apply on dressed lumber
+with the brush. For application on rough lumber or with the spraying
+machine it requires more thinning with water and varnish.
+
+The following is taken from Pearce's "_Painting and Decorating_":
+
+(8) A London recipe for distemper has the following proportions:
+4 "balls" whiting, 2 lbs. Young's patent size, and sufficient water to
+cover the whiting.
+
+(9) A Scotch distemper is described as: 12 lbs. whiting, size as given
+previously, 2 ozs. alum, 2 ozs. soft soap. It is very fast, for
+passages, schools, etc. Tinting colours for limewash should be
+restricted to ochres, umbers, lime blue, lime greens, charcoal or lamp
+black, and earthy reds (as Venetian).
+
+(10) External limewash for farm buildings, etc., may be made as follows:
+Lime, 1/2 bushel, slaked with 1 gallon of milk and remainder of water,
+1 lb. salt and 1/2 lb. sulphate of zinc to make it withstand the
+weather.
+
+Experiments with and practical tests of these and other kinds of
+whitewash are being carried out, and the author hopes that he may find
+opportunity at some later date of announcing the results obtained.
+
+
+    [Headnote: Local Materials]
+
+  II
+
+  THE IMPORTANCE OF USING LOCAL MATERIALS
+
+  (_Extract from "Country Life," November 9th, 1918_)
+
+  300,000 COTTAGES WOULD ENTAIL THE TRANSPORT OF 60,000,000 TONS
+  OF MATERIAL
+
+In carrying out any considerable scheme of house building two
+difficulties will have to be met. The first arises from the scarcity of
+building material; the other from the cost and difficulty of transport.
+These, to some extent, can be obviated by the use of local material,
+which is to be commended on other grounds as well. Local material fits
+into the character of the neighbourhood in which it is found and
+maintains its traditions.
+
+Very few people realise the bulk of materials, and in order to help them
+the following statement has been prepared to show the materials needed
+for each cottage and the total for 300,000 cottages:
+
+  Materials.                                        Weight.
+                                         Per One Cottage. Per 300,000.
+                                         Tons. Cwts. Qrs.   (Tons.)
+  Ballast, sand, gravel                       78 17  0     23,655,000
+  Lime                                         5 18  0      1,770,000
+  Cement                                      12  8  0      3,720,000
+  Bricks                                      85  0  0     25,500,000
+  Slates for D.P.C                             0 10  2        157,500
+  Chimney-pots                                 0  0  3         11,250
+  Tiles                                        7  2  2      2,137,500
+  Carcassing timber                            7  0  0      2,100,000
+  Complete joinery timber                      1 12  0        480,000
+  Cast-iron rain-water goods and sundries      0  9  0        135,000
+  Stoves, copper, ash-bin, etc.                0  5  2         82,500
+  Nails, screws, etc.                          0  1  2         22,500
+  Hair for plaster                             0  1  0         15,000
+  Lead flashings, etc.                         0  2  1         33,750
+  Sink, waste pipes, draining boards, etc.     0  2  1         33,750
+  Sanitary goods                               0  1  0         15,000
+  Whitening, distemper and paint               0  3  1         48,750
+                                             ---------     ----------
+      Total                                  199 14  2     59,917,500
+                                             ---------     ----------
+
+It will be seen that to carry out the scheme for 300,000 cottages a
+total of close on 60,000,000 tons of material will have to be shifted.
+In addition to that, it must be remembered that the cost of material is
+very small in comparison with that of building. This will be apparent
+from an analysis of the items employed for actual cost and the
+percentage which that cost bears to the total cost.
+
+Cottages erected 1912 (semi-detached): total interior area of cottage,
+772 ft. super, (parlour, kitchen, scullery and three bedrooms, coal and
+W.C.):
+
+                                                 Per House.
+ No.          Item.                   Actual Cost.     Per cent. of
+                                                         Total Cost.
+  1. Sundries                                  8              2.66
+  2. Foundations                              16              5.28
+  3. External and party walls (_a_)           77             25.41
+            Windows and doors (_b_)           23              7.59
+  4. Internal partitions                      36             11.88
+  5. Ground floor                             18              5.94
+  6. Upper floor                              22              7.26
+  7. Roof and rain-water goods                34              1.22
+  8. Chimney and fireplaces                   30              9.90
+  9. Sanitary fittings, water supply and
+         drainage                             19              6.27
+ 10. Staircases                               11              3.63
+ 11. Fittings                                  6              1.98
+                                            ----
+      Total                                 L300
+
+These facts help to clarify the problem. The weight of the building
+materials required for an ordinary cottage with living-room, parlour,
+scullery, three bedrooms, etc., the house containing cubic contents of
+about 11,500 ft., would come approximately to 200 tons per cottage; and
+even assuming that there is only an average transport of fifty miles,
+this would give 10,000 ton-miles per rural cottage, which is taking it
+at a very low average. In each cottage the weight of the brickwork
+represents about 42 per cent. of the total weight. It is, therefore,
+apparent that every effort should be made to lessen the transit of
+materials required for the external walling. If, on the other hand,
+local materials are employed, this carriage would be saved and a great
+economy effected. Even if this utilitarian consideration were not so
+important as it is, the desirability of making all possible use of local
+materials is very great from other points of view. It would stimulate
+local interest in building and, in addition to retaining the traditions
+of the district, give greater hope of retaining and maintaining the
+proper architectural aspect of our villages.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to summarise the advantages that may fairly be
+expected to flow from this endeavour to make a real start at finding a
+solution for the housing difficulty. First and foremost must be placed
+the saving in transport. A casual reader may easily imagine that the
+difficulties of carriage will vanish with the end of the war, but that
+is not so in reality. Any one who has travelled in France must have
+noticed engines bearing such names as Liverpool Street, King's Cross,
+Euston, Birmingham, and so on. The meaning of that is that a great deal
+of our rolling stock was sent over to France, and at the best will not
+be available here for a long time to come. Even the ordinary work of
+upkeep and repair has necessarily been neglected owing to the scarcity
+of men and other causes incidental to war-time. Transport difficulties
+are bound to last for a very considerable period after the peace
+settlement, and it would not be at all advisable to delay the
+construction of houses so long. The returned soldiers will make us
+vividly conscious of the shortage. Nothing could be imagined more likely
+to make them look for chances of going abroad than to learn that there
+is not sufficient housing accommodation for them in the village in which
+they lived before the war, and to which they hoped to return on its
+conclusion.
+
+
+    [Headnote: Cost per Foot Cube]
+
+  III
+
+  EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF _COUNTRY LIFE_,
+  JULY 27th, 1918
+
+"Shortly before the war I had occasion to demolish some very old
+cottages at Clovelly for the reconstruction of the New Inn. I was so
+much struck with the stability of these (although by no means
+first-class samples of cob work) that I collected some facts and notes
+on the subject from different parts of the county of Devon. Where
+bye-laws have been adopted, cob is no longer being used. It is
+difficult, therefore, to give an accurate comparison of costs, but after
+careful investigation I did arrive at the following results for North
+Devon and Scotland. The prices were in 1913, and in both cases for a
+five-roomed cottage (assuming four to be built at the same time,
+including internal water supply, but omitting any special work necessary
+to procure supply, and omitting fencing).
+
+                    Cost per foot cube    Cost per foot cube
+                    cob at 2 ft. 6 in.    11 in. hollow brick.
+                    thick.
+  North Devon         6-1/2d.                  5-7/8d.
+  Scotland            6d.                   6d.
+
+These prices assumed suitable material on or near site, and allowed
+something for the difficulty of getting at least one experienced
+cob-worker to instruct the unskilled men. Since 1913 the cost of brick
+has risen so much that cob would now be much cheaper, probably as much
+as 1d. or 1-1/4d. foot cube in both cases, and this is likely to be the
+case for many years. Suitable material exists in many parts of the
+country. If reed straw cannot be had, other reinforcements can be used.
+I have seen various materials in use, of which heather was perhaps the
+best and most easily procured. I can endorse from experience the comfort
+of these old buildings, and the affection of Devon people for them. The
+thick walls give all that a house should--protection from heat in summer
+and cold in winter. For the contrast, visit the new Garden City at
+Rosyth. Many of the houses are attractive, but their thin brick walls,
+tile and slate hanging are not suitable to the north and east coasts.
+Ask the opinion of the occupants of these new houses. Many of them are
+Devon born and bred, and imported from the dockyards of the three towns.
+They nearly all complain of the cold, and their views form an
+interesting comment on modern construction."
+
+
+  IV
+
+  PISE TESTS
+
+  (_With acknowledgements to "The Spectator"_)
+
+Through the courtesy of Messrs. Alban Richards & Co. we are able to
+publish the results of certain very instructive tests that have been
+carried out on Pise during the past winter. Messrs. Richard's experience
+and Report bring out two points with especial clearness, (1) That Pise
+work, though not impossible under winter conditions, is not ordinarily
+desirable unless some means of artificially drying the earth be resorted
+to. (2) That the strength of Pise increases with surprising rapidity as
+the work dries out. It should be remarked that none of the samples
+tested were made from really good Pise soil, such for instance as the
+red marls or brick earths. With such materials or anything approaching
+them, the results would have been even better, as the Report points
+out:--
+
+"In conjunction with Mr. Williams-Ellis, we have made certain tests with
+a view to satisfying ourselves as to the practicability of _pise de
+terre_ for house construction. In order to obtain what we might term the
+minimum or 'worst' tests, we decided to erect walls for this purpose in
+the winter. This we have done for the last three months, which has been
+a very wet period, and the following is a short description of the tests
+we have made:--
+
+  "1. Two walls were erected measuring 14 ft. long, 9 ft. high and 18
+  in. thick, spaced 20 ft. apart, with short return ends to each wall.
+  Wall plates were placed centrally along the top of each wall, on
+  which were placed 9 in. by 3 in. wood joists, at 16 in. centres,
+  across the 20 ft span. In order to obtain the minimum results we
+  allowed the shutters to remain until the test was ready to be
+  applied, so that walls did not have an opportunity of drying or
+  hardening. This condition was thought necessary, as it is quite
+  reasonable to expect that if _pise de terre_ cottages are erected,
+  considerable weight might be placed on the walls immediately the
+  shuttering is struck. We then proceeded to test the walls to
+  destruction. The floor space provided for by the joists referred to
+  above measure 220 super. feet, the load was then applied gradually.
+  The load applied totalled 16-1/2 tons, which is equivalent of 168 lbs.
+  per super. foot of floor space, under which the wall collapsed,
+  which, in our opinion, provides a factor of safety of three to the
+  normal load which a cottage floor would have to bear.
+
+"We are convinced that very much better results can be obtained in this
+method of construction with walls which were first dried before the load
+was applied. Further experiments are to be made to procure further data
+on this subject. In addition to the above tests, we have submitted to
+the National Physical Laboratory, blocks made of _pise de terre_, from
+poor to medium soil, for testing purposes, and the following are the
+results which have been obtained:--
+
+"The following Report shows results of Tests made by the National
+Physical Laboratory.
+
+
+    [Headnote: Pise Tests]
+
+  "REPORT ON TESTS OF BUILDING BLOCKS OF PISE DE TERRE SENT FOR TEST
+  BY MESSRS. W. ALBAN RICHARDS & CO., LTD.
+
+"_Tests made on January 14, 1920._
+
+"First set of three blocks sent in November 1919.
+
+"These blocks were composed of a fine gravel containing very few and
+very small stones. The material was said to be similar to that used at
+Merrow Down, near Guildford, Surrey. It appeared to be very similar to
+Farnham gravel.
+
+"The blocks were tested in compression, one within twenty-four hours of
+arrival at the laboratory, and the others after drying for a time in the
+laboratory. For results of tests see Table I.
+
+  TABLE I
+
+  ----+------+--------------+----+----+-------+-----+-------+----------
+      |      |              |    |    |       |   LOAD.     |
+      |      |              |Age |Area|Density+-----+-------+
+      |      |              | in | in | lbs.  |     |in tons|
+      |      | Dimensions   |days|sq. | per   | in  |  per  |
+  No. |Marks.|  in inches.  | *  |ft. |c. ft. |tons |sq. ft.| REMARKS.
+  ----+------+--------------+----+----+-------+-----+-------+----------
+  UT1 |  3   |    9x9x9     | 1  |.562| 131   |0.70 |  1.66 |Cracked
+      |      |              |    |    |       |1.04 |  2.47 |Collapsed
+      |      |              |    |    |       |     |       |
+  UT2 |  1   | 8.9x8.9x8.9  | 9  |.550| 125   |4.27 | 10.50 |Collapsed
+      |      |              |    |    |       |     |       |
+  UT3 |  2   |8.95x8.95x8.95|16  |.556| 117   |2.31 |  5.57 |Small
+      |      |              |    |    |       |4.23 | 10.20 | cracks
+      |      |              |    |    |       |     |       | appeared
+  ----+------+--------------+----+----+-------+-----+-------+----------
+
+    [*: Age after arrival at laboratory.]
+
+"Second set of blocks sent in December 1919.
+
+"This set consisted of six blocks in three pairs, each pair having been
+rammed with a different quantity of water.
+
+"One of each pair was tested within twenty-four hours of arrival at the
+laboratory, and the others after drying in the laboratory for twenty-six
+days.
+
+"The material used was not homogeneous, and the mixture consisted of a
+very clayey loam, a fibrous loam, sand and large stones. The clayey
+material gave rise to surface cracks as the blocks dried.
+
+"For results of tests see Table II.
+
+  TABLE II
+
+  ----+------+------------+----+----+-------+-----+-------+----------
+      |      |            |    |    |       |   LOAD.     |
+      |      |            |Age |Area|Density+-----+-------+
+      |      |            | in | in | lbs.  |     |in tons|
+      |      |Dimensions  |days|sq. | per   | in  |  per  |
+  No. |Marks.| in inches. | *  |ft. |c. ft. |tons |sq. ft.| REMARKS.
+  ----+------+------------+----+----+-------+-----+-------+----------
+  VW1 |  1   | 8.9x9x8.5  | 1  |.555| 106   |0.45 |0.81   |Cracked at
+      | dry  |            |    |    |       |     |       | one corner
+      |      |            |    |    |       |0.51 |0.92   |Collapsed
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       |
+  VW2 |  2   |   9x9x9    |26  |.562| 105   |2.15 |3.84   |Collapsed.
+      | dry  |            |    |    |       |     |       | Material
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       | quite dry
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       | in interior
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       |
+  VW3 |  3   |9.1x9.1x8.9 | 1  |.570| 134   |0.55 |0.96   |Collapsed
+      | wet  |            |    |    |       |     |       |
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       |
+  VW4 |  4   |8.8x8.8x8.9 |26  |.546| 110   |3.20 |5.86   |Collapsed.
+      | wet  |            |    |    |       |     |       | Material
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       | quite dry
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       | in interior
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       |
+  VW5 |  5   |  9x8.9x9   | 1  |.558| 126   |0.60 |1.08   |Bulged and
+      |medium|            |    |    |       |     |       | cracked
+      |      |            |    |    |       |0.69 |1.24   |Collapsed
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       |
+  VW6 |  6   | 8.8x8.8x7  |26  |.546| 109   |3.33 |6.10   |Collapsed.
+      |medium|            |    |    |       |     |       | Material
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       | slightly
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       | damp in
+      |      |            |    |    |       |     |       | the interior
+  ----+------+------------+----+----+-------+-----+-------+----------
+
+    [*: Age after arrival at laboratory.]
+
+    Seal of
+  NATIONAL PHYSICAL LABORATORY _Signature of Director_
+
+"From the second set of blocks it would appear that it is better to ram
+with too much moisture than with too little. It will be noted that the
+density of the wet block was 30 per cent. more than that of the dry
+block, so that a wall could be carried higher with the dry material than
+with the wet, although such a wall would never gain the strength which a
+wet one would upon drying.
+
+
+  CONCLUSIONS
+
+"We are of opinion, having regard to the fact that the house at Newlands
+Corner (Guildford four miles) has weathered the winter, without showing
+any signs of dampness, that _pise de terre_ will make a thoroughly dry
+house.
+
+"We consider that the tests made are satisfactory, and prove that this
+form of construction is of a sufficiently sound nature to be employed in
+the building of houses. With really suitable material, such as a light
+brick-earth or marl, it is considered that the results already obtained
+might well be 100 per cent. better."
+
+We are informed that additional tests are now proceeding with regard to
+the water-proof and weather-resisting qualities of Pise, the results of
+which will be duly published.
+
+
+
+
+_INDEX_
+
+
+INTRODUCTION:
+
+  Chalk walls, 18
+  Cheap materials, the search for, 13
+  Pise de craie, 16, 17, 107
+  Pise, experiments with, 15
+    in moulds, 19, 20
+    in South Africa, 22, 23
+  Pliny on Pise de terre, 25
+  Rammed chalk, 16, 17, 107
+
+GENERAL SURVEY:
+
+  Building materials, shortage of, 26
+  "Ersatz" products introduced during the War, 26
+  House famine, the, 27
+  Local materials, use of, to avoid transport, 29
+  Lutyens, Sir Edwin, and Mr. Alban Scott, cottage by, 30
+  Rural housing, suitability of cob and pise for, 28
+
+I--COB:
+
+  Allen, Mr. C. B., his reference to Devon cob, quoted, 47
+  Baring-Gould, Rev. S., on cob, quoted, 47
+  Beauty of cob, 35
+  Bernard, Mr. Charles, his account of Sir Walter Raleigh's cob house,
+      45, 46
+  _Book of the West, The_, by Rev. S. Baring-Gould, reference to cob
+      in, quoted, 47
+  Building, 37, 38, 39
+  Carpentry and joinery, 41, 42
+  Chimneys, 44
+  Cob tradition, 52
+  Composition, 36
+  Cost, 35, 50
+  _Cottage-Building_, reference to cob in, quoted, 47
+  _Country Life_, letter to, relating to cob work, quoted, 115, 116
+  Design, 44, 45
+  Devon cob, 47
+  Drying, 39
+  Elizabethan cob houses still existing, 34
+  Former conditions returned, 52
+  Foundations and base, 40; result of bad, 34
+  Fruit walls, of cob, 47, 48
+  Fulford, Mr., of Great Fulford, on cob, 50-52
+  Gimson, Mr., his description of building cob, quoted, 35
+  Hayes Barton, Sir Walter Raleigh's house at, 45, 46
+  Hipped roofs, 41
+  Joinery, 41, 42, 43
+  Masonry and carpentry, 41, 42
+  Method of building, 36-45
+  Mixing, 37
+  Northcote, Lady Rosalind, her description of Sir Walter Raleigh's
+      house, 46
+  Primitive methods, 47
+  Protection, 43
+  Protective wash, 51
+  Raleigh, Sir Walter, his cob house at Hayes Barton, 45, 46
+  Rats, 44
+  Reed thatch, 46
+  Rendering, 51
+  Roofing, 51
+  Shuttering, 51
+  Strength, 44
+  Thickness of walls, 40
+  Traditional building material in Devon and Wessex, 33
+  Training of ex-soldiers, 52
+
+  II--PISE:
+
+  Bolts, 86
+  Bonders, 69
+  Building procedure, 71, 72, 74, 75
+  Capabilities, 57, 58
+  Corners, 68
+  _Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and
+      Literature_, on pise, quoted, 59-71
+  Damp-course, 86
+  Definition of Pise de terre, 57, 59
+  Durability, 82
+  _Earthwork, A Manual on_, quoted, 73-76
+  Empandeni, pise work executed at, 78, 79, 80
+  Excavation, 86
+  Etah Jail, pise work executed at, 76, 77, 78
+  Fillet, 87
+  Floating, 86
+  Foundations, 74
+  Frames, 87
+  France, introduction of pise into, 57
+  Gorffon, Monsieur, reference to his treatise on pise, 57
+  History, 57
+  Indian and Colonial practice, 73-88
+  Introduced into France by the Romans, 57
+  _Journal de Physique_, by the Abbe Rozier, quoted, 58
+  Lintels, 87
+  Locale, 58
+  Method of building, 58-62
+  Method of working, 60, 61, 62
+  New South Wales, pise work in, 81-88
+  Origin, 58
+  Picture-rail, 87
+  Plant required, 85, 89, 90
+  Plastering, 75
+  Pliny, references to his account of pise, 25, 57
+  Plugs, 86, 87
+  Protection, 75
+  Rain, 67
+  Rammer, the, 59, 60
+  Ramming, 62, 76
+  Rate of work, 63
+  Rendering, 70
+  Rods _versus_ bars, 75, 76
+  Rozier, the Abbe, his _Journal de Physique_, quoted, 58
+  Shuttering, 59, 88, 89
+  Shutter ties, 73
+  Skirting, 87
+  Soil blending, 64
+    preparation of, 66, 67
+    suitable, 63, 74, 86
+    tests, 63
+    to ascertain quality of, 65
+  Speed of building, 70
+  Stability, 82
+  Strength, 69
+  Studding, 87, 88
+  Theory and science of pise, the, 62-73
+  Ventilators, 86
+  Virtues of pise, 72
+  Wire netting, use of, 87, 88
+
+III--CHALK:
+
+  Block chalk, 117, 118
+  Chalk compost, historical, 107
+    composition and uses, 108, 109
+  Chalk conglomerate, 114
+  Chimneys, 110
+  External rendering, 110
+  Frost, 109
+  Garden walls, 111
+  House walls, 112
+  Old and modern examples, 112-115
+  Rats and chalk, 116
+  Rendering, 110
+  Repairs, 110
+  Roof, 111
+  Strength, 110
+  Timber, 109
+  Winterslow cottages, the, 115, 116
+
+IV--UNBURNED CLAY AND EARTH BRICKS:
+
+  "Adobe," use of, in New South Wales, 124
+  Age of clay-lump buildings, 124
+  East Anglia, use of sun-dried bricks in, 121
+  Method of making, 121
+  New South Wales, use of sun-dried bricks in, 124
+  Skipper, Mr., on sun-dried bricks, quoted, 121
+  Strength of clay-lump walls, 124
+  Thickness of clay-lump walls, 122-124
+
+APPENDIX:
+
+  Cold-water paint, recipe for, 129
+  Cost, an analysis of building, 131
+  _Country Life_, letter to, relating to cob work, quoted, 132, 133
+  Distempers, recipes for, 129
+  Local materials, importance of using, 130, 131
+  Weight of building materials, table of, 130
+  Whitewash, recipes for, 127, 128
+
+
+
+
+  Printed by
+  Hazell, Watson and Viney, Ld.,
+  London and Aylesbury.
+
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+  what quality characterises some of the building of to-day.
+  Abundantly and splendidly illustrated, this book shows the work of
+  a great master." --_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+
++Grinling Gibbons and the Woodwork of His Age (1648-1720).+
+
+By H. AVRAY TIPPING, M.A., F.S.A. Large folio, quarter buckram, 31/3
+net; half morocco, 43/9 net; postage 10d. extra. Nearly 250
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+  archaeology, which to a large extent is kept closed from the common
+  eye." --_Scotsman_.
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+
+By SIR THEODORE ANDREA COOK, M.A., F.S.A., with an Introductory Chapter,
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+  --_Times_.
+
+
++Windsor Castle.+
+
+An Architectural History. Collected and written by command of Their
+Majesties QUEEN VICTORIA, KING EDWARD VII. and King GEORGE V. By SIR
+WILLIAM H. ST. JOHN HOPE, Litt.D., D.C.L. Imperial quarto, in Two
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+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+           *       *       *       *
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Pliny, _Natural History_, Bk. XXXV, chapter xlviii, quoted at end of
+Introduction:
+
+  "_Have we not in Africa and in Spain ... erected by Hannibal._"
+
+The standard numbering of this passage is XXXV.lxi. With punctuation and
+capitalization adjusted by transcriber to match translation:
+
+  Quid non in Africa Hispaniaque e terra parietes, quos appellant
+  'formaceos', quoniam in forma circumdatis ii utrimque tabulis
+  inferciuntur verius quam struuntur? Aevis durant, incorrupti
+  imbribus, ventis, ignibus omnique caemento firmiores. Spectat etiam
+  nunc speculas Hannibalis Hispania terrenasque turres iugis montium
+  inpositas.
+
+
+Illustration reproduced from 1819 Encyclopaedia:
+
+Immediately below the picture is the almost illegible text:
+
+  J. F. delin. / Lowry / Published as the Act directs 1817
+  by Longman Hurst Rees, Orme & Brown Paternoster Row.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+           *       *       *       *
+
+Errors and Inconsistencies (noted by transcriber):
+
+  [Headnotes]
+  Pise--a South African Lead
+  The Discovery of the Old
+    [_these two notes were transposed to fit the text_]
+
+  [Illustration: / +The Newlands Waggon-house.+ / Interior.]
+    [final . missing]
+  force of the south-westerly storms."  [single for double quote]
+  This requires no hair, and is easily applied."  [close quote missing]
+  have always been found perfectly sound  ["prefectly"]
+  "Strangers who have sailed upon the Rhone  [open quote missing]
+  "There is every reason for introducing  [open quote missing]
+  "Pise is a material readily obtainable  [single for double quote]
+  merely improvements of mechanism.  [. missing]
+  the misguided enthusiasts responsible
+    [line-end hyphen in "mis-/guided" invisible]
+  it is generally bonded in in the ordinary way  [not an error]
+  Chapter III. _CHALK_ / Sec. I. GENERAL
+    [there are no sections II, III...]
+  fixed to wood blocks built in in a similar way  [not an error]
+  [*: Age after arrival at laboratory.]
+    [duplicate footnote added by transcriber:
+    tables were printed on a single page]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cottage Building in Cob, Pisé, Chalk
+and Clay, by Clough Williams-Ellis
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COTTAGE BUILDING IN COB ***
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