906 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



in perfectly dry places, and as far as possible excluding the 

 air from it. 



Since writing the above I have been informed upon good 

 authority that excellent hydraulic limestone and also " true 

 cement " rocks are obtainable at no very great distance from 

 Hobart. If this be so, wisdom would seem to dictate that 

 builders and others interested in the subject should make 

 every effort to work the deposit. There is a large demand 

 in all the southern colonies for cement, and if the operations 

 be judiciously and economically managed the project should 

 prove pecuniarily successful. 



6.— ON THE EVIDENCE FOR THE PREVALENCE 

 OF THE CIRCULAR FORM OF HUMAN HABI- 

 TATIONS IN PRE-HISTORIC TIMES. 



By E. DOBSON, M. Inst. C.E. 



The object of this paper is not so much to advance theories 

 as to formulate lines of enquiry, which, if steadily followed 

 up for a few years, may probably lead to important historical 

 and ethnological results. 



The attention of the writer was first seriously drawn to 

 this subject by the study of Butcher and Lang's translation 

 of the Odyssey, the special passage which rivetted his atten- 

 tion being in connection with the description of the slaughter 

 of the suitors in the palace of Ulysses at Ithaca. 



I need hardly observe that a great deal of scientific 

 research has been bestowed on the arrangement of that 

 palace, as described by Homer, without any definite result. 

 If, however, instead of trying to evoke out of our own con- 

 sciousness the idea of the plan of a Greek mansion to fit 

 Homer's description, we turn to the actual remains of the 

 houses of the better class in Pompeii, the architecture of 

 which was specially Greek in character, we have no difficulty 

 in reconstructing the leading features of Homer's descrip- 

 tion, and in the plan of the house of Sallust (so-called) we 

 find all the essential features of the home of the Ithacan 

 hero. 



There is the women's quarter, wholly separated from the 

 rest of the house, and approached by a single door guarded 

 by a slave, for whom a cubiculum was provided. There are 



