PART III,] MORRIS BIRKBECK, ESQ. 569 



He has 370 left. And now what is he to do? 

 He arrives in May. So that this family has to 

 cross the sea in winter, and the land in spring. 

 There they are, however, and now what are 

 they to do? They are to have built for 50 

 dollars a house " EXTREMELY COM- 

 " PORTABLE AND CONVENIENT:" 

 the very words that you use in describing the 

 farmer's house, that was to cost, with out 

 buildings, 1500 dollars! However, you have 

 described your own cabin, whence we may ga 

 ther the meaning which you attach to the word 

 comfortable. " This cabin is built of round 

 " straight logs, about a foot in diameter, laying 

 " upon each other, and notched in at the cor- 

 " ners, forming a room eighteen feet long by 

 " sixteen ; the intervals between the logs 

 " ' chunked,' that is, filled in with slips of 

 " wood ; and ' mudded,' that is, daubed with a 

 " plaister of mud ; a spacious chimney, built 

 " also of logs, stands like a bastion at one end; 

 " the roof is well covered with four hundred 

 " ' clap boards' of cleft oak, very much like the 

 " pales used in England for fencing parks. A 

 " hole is cut through the side called, very pro- 

 " perly, the ' through, 9 for which there is a 

 ** shutter/ made also of cleft oak, and hung on- 

 " wooden hinges. All this has been executed 

 " by contract, and well executed, for twenty 



