THE DWELLING HOUSE 



buildings the elements, and his enemies of the animal 

 kingdom. Indeed these are the two great factors 

 that have forced him to go into dwellings at all. And 

 the richest and most highly developed urban dweller 

 is influenced by these two things almost as much 

 to-day in the construction of his house, as was his 

 primitive ancestor dwelling in his skin or mud hut 

 on the shores of the Mediterranean. He does not 

 fear the jungle night-prowlers that menaced the hut- 

 dweller, to be sure, but he has to guard himself against 

 other night-prowlers, quite as fierce and far more cun- 

 ning than the four-footed ones of the jungle. 



The one common enemy which baffled the ancient 

 builder as it still baffles the modern, is fire. The 

 dwellers on the equator, and those near the poles, are 

 troubled very little by this enemy; but those living 

 in intermediate regions must always have it in mind 

 in choosing the materials for their homes. 



Until comparatively recent times the problem of 

 transporting building material long distances has been 

 so great that the surrounding conditions determined 

 largely the materials that would be used for construct- 

 ing most of the buildings at any given place. But the 

 advent of steam so modified transportation methods, 

 and steam-driven machinery so facilitated the gather- 

 ing of building material, that local conditions now have 

 very little bearing on the material used in construction. 

 In place of the Kansas squatter's adobe cabin, made 

 of material gathered within a radius of a mile or less 

 from his door, the fairly well-to-do Kansas farmer of 

 to-day thinks nothing of building a modest house with 



