THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 175 



When the first tier has been completed the second can be begun 

 in any of several ways. The simplest is to select any point in the 

 circle formed by your first tier, and from the top edge of one of the 

 blocks make a diagonal cut downward to the bottom edge of the 

 far corner of the same block, or of the second or third block. In 

 the niche thus formed you place the first block of the second tier, its 

 end abutting on the last block of the ground tier. After that you 

 lean the second block of the second tier against the first block of 

 the second tier, and so on, building up spirally. The blocks of 

 each tier must be inclined inward at a greater angle than those 

 of the tier below and at a less angle than those of the tier above. 

 In other words, what you are trying to do is to build an approxi- 

 mately perfect dome. 



By the simple experiment of propping two books of the same 

 size against each other on a table, it will be found that they cannot 

 fall unless they slide past each other where they meet at the cor- 

 ners, or slip on the table. But snow is so sticky that these blocks 

 do not slip, and we cut the corners in such a way that they meet 

 with even faces and do not tend to slide past each other any more 

 than do blocks in a masonry dome. Building with snow blocks is 

 far simpler than building with masonry, for stone is an intractable 

 substance and has to be shaped according to a mathematical calcu- 

 lation or moulded in an exact form before it is put in its intended 

 position; but snow being a most tractable substance, such fore- 

 thought becomes unnecessary. We place the block in its approxi- 

 mate position in the wall and then lean it gradually against the 

 block that next preceded it, and, by the method of trial and error, 

 continually snip off piece after piece until the block settles com- 

 fortably into the position where it belongs. A glance at the photo- 

 graphs, especially the ones illustrating th-j latter steps in the build- 

 ing, shows that the blocks cannot possibly fall unless they first 

 break. 



It becomes evident that with photographs and a description 

 and possibly, for surety's sake, a diagram or two in addition, the 

 building of snowhouses could be taught by correspondence to boys 

 in any place on earth where the winters are cold enough and the 

 winds strong enough to form hard snowdrifts that last for several 

 days or weeks. It is therefore curious that the building of snow- 

 houses has until just lately been considered a sort of mystery. 

 Antarctic explorers, like Shackleton, have realized the superior 

 comfort of the snowhouse but have used tents, explaining the ap- 

 parent inconsistency by saying, "There are no Eskimos in the 



