132 THE HOUSE I LIVE IN. 



ent. In a common wooden building, the paint 

 is applied to the outside ; but in the house I 

 occupy, it is put between the clapboards and 

 the thick boards under them. But to be a 

 little more particular. 



THE SKIN. I have already told you what 

 cellular membrane is. Now the first layer of 

 the covering of the house I live in, consists 

 of this membrane, in pretty large quantity, and 

 as it were firmly pressed together. That it is 

 the very same sort of membrane full of little 

 cells is proved from the fact that if you insert 

 a quill into a small hole through the middle 

 layer of the skin, which I am about to describe, 

 and blow with Jy our mouth or a bellows, you 

 can fill these cells, all over the body, with air ; 

 and a small animal, like a rabbit or a squirrel, 

 will look almost as round as a foot-ball. 



Next to this is the middle layer, or what 

 answers to the stout, rough boards of a build- 

 ing, on which the clapboards are laid. This, 

 and this alone, is the real skin, or that which, 

 in the case of the ox, deer and other animals, 

 makes the leather. In tanning, currying and 



