ABOUT CARPENTERS. 235 



should be added to the structure, thus wisely adding to its security. 

 There was a hut for every family, with a trap-door giving access to 

 the lake beneath. The small children were tied by the foot with a 

 string, lest they should fall into the water. 



Hassenfratz took some trouble to ascertain the actual form of the 

 huts of savage tribes of our time. In his book on carpentry he gives 

 thirty-three specimens, of which, however, only sixteen or eighteen 

 were copied from existing habitations, the remainder being derived 

 from detailed descriptions of travelers. The pyramidal form, as the 

 simplest, is that generally adopted by the more barbarous tribes, which 

 fact gives good ground for conjecture that this style of building is the 

 oldest of all. Usually the plan is oblong, though sometimes circular, 

 and the roof is either angular or curved, according as stiff or pliant 

 woods were at hand. In the African kraals and similar huts, flexible 

 pieces of wood are bent into a semicircle, and the ends fixed into 

 the ground. Other huts resemble pig-sties, rabbit-bins, and chicken- 

 houses. The Siamese elevate the floor of their cabins some feet above 

 the ground for protection from the damp, and the summer huts of the 

 Kamtchatdales are built on posts and have for an entrance an inclined 

 piece of timber with rough steps, like those in chicken-houses, leading 

 to the roosting-place. This seems to be the primitive idea of building 

 a staircase. 



Chinese structures, when compared with those of less advanced 

 nations, are a token of wonderful progress. The Chinese have had 

 regular carpenters from time immemorial, while, among primitive 

 nations, there is no trace of classification of workmen into distinct 

 trades. A species of bamboo is much used by the Chinese ; the inner 

 part of this wood being spongy, it is practically a cylinder which does 

 not admit of squaring, but is strong, hard, and durable. The skill of 

 the Chinese carpenters is chiefly demonstrated by their light and ele- 

 gant bridges, and, if we mistake not, the first idea of suspension-bridges 

 was borrowed from them. 



Among no nations of civilized antiquity did carpentry attain so 

 high a development as among the Persians, the Hebrews, and the Phoe- 

 nicians. With these nations joinery, in the proper acceptation of the 

 word, may be said to have begun, and the progress that this step 

 marked in art is more easily imagined than described. Whatever be 

 the credit accorded to the book of Genesis, it will always remain the 

 most authentic record of the Hebrew nation in Moses's times. The 

 account therein found of the ark is very important in connection with 

 ship-building : if we reflect that the proportions of the ark have been 

 nearly the same as those of modern ship-building, up to the time of 

 the application of iron and steam to navigation, their skill can not but 

 command admiration. From its resemblance to a house, it may also 

 be safely inferred that Hebrew dwellings were divided into stories and 

 rooms and had a sloping roof, which, upon the whole, is essentially the 



