DEATH DEALING MOISTURE 303 



One objection to cement walls and floors in houses is that an 

 echo may detract from the homelike atmosphere. 



Filing-Cabinet Fireproof Room. 



Slow burning construction and a low fireproof annex cover 

 the owner's usual requirements, unless he decides to build a 

 one-story cement affair, say 10x10x10, detached from the house, 

 lined with boiler iron, and burglar-proof, electrically connected 

 with the master's bedroom through pipes laid in a cement grouted 

 ditch, and entirely free from all risk of burning debris which is 

 bound to endanger such a room if in or annexed to a dwelling. 

 Cumbersome maps, deeds, contracts, and the long list of papers 

 that may never be used, but if wanted and readily found some- 

 times save or make a fortune, and a card index showing in an instant 

 where past or present needs are stored, all find a place in this impor- 

 tant, thoroughly protected, and practical filing room. The lack of 

 such a room and the temporary loss of an important paper once cost 

 me many times the expense of a filing-cabinet fireproof-room. 



"Forest-born Houses." 



Forest-born houses, when rightly planned and constructed, are 

 drier and w r armer, and we think healthier, and preferable to those 

 of any other material; they also lend themselves more readily to 

 homelike and artistic treatment. As science has tested its theories on 

 guinea pigs and monkeys, so makers of country houses have unwit- 

 tingly tested stone and cement walled homes for horses, cattle, and 

 poultry versus forest-born shelters, and found less rheumatism and 

 better general health in the latter. It is good construction to veneer 

 hollow brick with rived shakes. 



Death Dealing Moisture. 



An important phase of the building problem is solved when we 

 so construct as to exclude moisture through the insidious avenues of 

 leaking roof, wall, gable, hip, valley, balcony, window and door frame. 

 The driest possible house, but more expensive, would have its exterior 

 of glazed brick or glazed or unglazed terra cotta in color harmony 

 with its surroundings. Radical? Granted, and possibly cornmercialjbut 

 far less so than that house built of glass from cellar to roof-tree, that 

 western-built copper house, or an octagonal or possibly gasometer 

 round house. The latter scheme, if in a large building with archi- 

 trave, entablature, and column, is capable of most impressive effects, 

 but expensive to enlarge and ventilate, and as generally built is puny, 

 bare, and often grotesque. A glaring, glazed or unglazed terra cotta 

 or brick exterior should be softened by suitable vine, shrub, and tree 

 planting, and, while neither tree nor shrub must shut from any house 

 the health-giving rays of the sun, approaches should be so laid out 

 as to give the impression of a foliage-embowered dwelling. 



