31£ BAKED HOVSES OF INDIA. 



third or an half of coarfe fand, or fmall gravel pafled through 



a fieve to clear it from pebbles. The fat earth is mixed with 



the fand and gravel, and worked up well with it, to that the 



then moiftened ma ^ s ma > be of an uniform confidence. It is then moiftened 



with water. with water five or fix hours before it is wanted, and in the 



quantity neceffary for a (ingle day's work alone. 

 The wills are The mixture thus prepared is carried to the place of build- 



rated al1 1< ^°" ing, when the foundations are perfectly dry, and the walls are 

 then built equally in every part at the fame time, on a perfect 

 level, in courfes, and brought up perpendicularly : each courfe 

 from two to four of earth is from eight to ten inches in depth, and the whole 

 feet thick. breadth of the wall, which is feldom lefs than two feet thick, 



and never exceeds four; which ditnenfions are always re- 

 gulated by the intended height of the building, and the force 

 fnonetwoor of the floods, if it is near the river. When the walls are 

 three courfes in three feet am l a half, or four feet thick, only one courfe is 



a day according * ' ■* 



*othe thicknefs. raifed in a day; but when they are from two feet and half 



to three feet thick, two courfes are railed, and if they are 



but two feet thick, three courfes are fometimes raifed in that 



fpace of time. This depends on the quicknefs of the defic- 



cation of the walls, which fpeedily takes place there, where the 



drynefs of the air is extreme : this would not perhaps happen 



in our moift climates ; if this method of building fhould be 



tried here, it would probably be neceflary to leave them 



longer to dry, in order to obtain the requifite tenacity. 



Spaces left for When the walls are built to the height for the roof, the 



beams, doors, p r0 per openings are made for the beams and joifts. It is 



2nd. windows* 



almoft needlefs to add, that the apertures neceifary for tke 

 doors and windows are made while the walls are building. 

 The walls when On the twelfth or fifteenth day, or when the walls are 

 dry areenclofed f u ffi c i en tly dry, or to the fame degree to which tiles are dried, 

 in open work ,, r 11 1 • n • 1 " c L 



cafes of bamboa, the walls are iurrounded externally and internally with a iort 



of open work cafe, made of (pars of bambou, or of lome other 



hard and dry wood. In Indoftan, where this method of 



building is general, the workman have bars of iron, which 



they hire out, that ferve to fuilain the coffer work mentioned, 



at two or three and are placed at every three or four yards; the coffer work 



feetdiftancc, j s raifed at two or three feet diftance from the furface of the 



fitted* with^cL w »i]s, according to their thicknefs, and the fpace between is 



filled up with firewood, turfs, and cakes made of cow and 



(heep dung worked together and dried in the fun. 



