6s 2 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and unpainted. Rarely does a house strike one as being specially 

 marked or better looking than its neighbors ; more substantial, cer- 

 tainly, some of them are, and yet there is a sameness about them which 

 becomes wearisome. Particularly is this the case with the long, un- 

 interesting row of houses that border a village street ; their picturesque 



Fio. 8.— Arrangement of Square Tiles on Side op Housb. 



roofs alone save them from becoming monotonous. A closer study, 

 however, reveals some marked differences between the country and 

 city houses, as well as between those of different provinces. 



The country house, if anything more than a shelter from the ele- 

 ments, is larger and more substantial than the city house, and, with its 

 ponderous thatched roof and elaborate ridge, is always picturesque. 

 One sees much larger houses in the north — roofs of grand proportions 

 and an amplitude of space beneath, that farther south occurs only 

 under the roofs of temples. We speak now of the houses of the better 

 classes, for the poor farm-laborer and fisherman, as well as their pro- 

 totypes in the city, possess houses that are little better than shanties, 

 built, as a friend has forcibly expressed it, of "chips, paper, and straw." 

 But even these huts, clustered together as they oftentimes are in the 



