5 
might be devised : but these differences will be 
so obvious to you, that it is unnecessary to 
dwell upon them. There is, however, one point 
on which it may not be amiss to enlarge — and 
that is the facility which such a disposition of 
plan affords for the ample accommodation of a 
moderate family without rendering a resort 
necessary to more than the ground story for 
the purpose. Such a facility considering the 
material of which most of our dwelling houses 
are now and are likely for a long time to be 
built is most valuable. There is less danger of 
loss of life in the event of fire — less annoyance 
likely to arise from defective building — and 
much greater scope for shade and space at 
much less comparative cost. Add to this that 
unless staircases are wide and well planned, 
they are, in a hot climate, always more or less a 
nuisance. It has been urged that upper rooms 
secure the coolness of the lower ones, but ad- 
mittii g this by no means inevitable consequence 
then the upper ones are left heated. Now it 
you avoid rooms in the roof you have a 
considerable space above the ceiling and 
you can secure a current of air always pas- 
sing through it, which in the case of dwelling 
apartments is impossible. 
I have spoken of verandahs. For 9hade and 
for shelter a width of seven feet is the practical 
minimum. Of course, if the wall to be shel- 
tered is lofty and the verandah high also, then 
the width must increase. It should never be 
narrower than will admit of keeping the walls 
always in shade when the sun’s rays fall at an 
angle of forty-five degrees. 
With respect to the materials for an ordinary 
dwelling, it is not to be doubted that stone will 
come first, good brick second, timber thirdly, 
and common or inferior brick last of all. But 
there are methods by which very common 
material may be made to serve all the useful 
purposes of the more costly. Architectural 
effect — properly so called, for I do not mean 
mere prettinesses — must he left for the present 
out of the question. 
The usual method of building a timber house 
is by an arrangement of common quartering of 
the smallest possible scantling not very scienti- 
fically braced, and either boarded on both sides 
or boarded outside and plastered within. There 
is little air space between the external and in- 
ternal linings, and the weakness of the indivi- 
dual pieces to resist the warping effect of our 
scorching sun is far from provided against by 
the framing. An equal or less quantity of 
timber properly disposed would produce a far 
better effect and be more useful in securing an 
equable temperature within the dwelling. In 
arrangements of this kind some of the half-tim- 
bered houses of Essex and Norfolk supply ad- 
mirable examples — I mean in a constructive as 
distinguished from an architectural point of 
view. In these houses the greatest care was 
bestowed in providing principal bearing posts and 
heads and cills of large scantling,.so as to admit 
of the interspaces being filled in with light 
rhaterial with the least possible detriment to 
the general fabric. In some houses in these a* 
well as in other English counties, almost the 
whole external space between the angle posts of 
of a room is filled in with windows. In this 
colony we do not want the large window ; but 
the system of framing is worthy of considera- 
tion. In a room wall presenting a frontage of 
15 feet, two angle posts and two intermediate 
ones would be wanted ; between these last the 
window would be fixed. Horizontal pieces 
from post to post at intervals of two feet six 
: would serve to carry the vertical grooved and 
tongued boards which would line the outside 
walls. For the inside a half brick wall bonded 
with horizontal ties nailed to these posts would 
admit of internal plastering to those who like 
that method of finishing (which indeed where 
paper is to be employed is almost indispensable 
and would besides present a non-conducting 
material to neutralise an external heated atmo- 
sphere. Or were brick work desired to vary 
the external aspect, the heavy timber main sup- 
ports might be allowed to appear, and the 3pans 
between filled in with an external and internal 
half brick wall connected by header courses of 
longer bricks at the proper intervals. Such a 
wall would be as great a non-conductor ol heat 
as a coursed rubble stone wall two feet thick, 
and very much cheaper, and superior in effect. 
You can get no art out of a plain rubble wall, 
but the timber and brick afford almost infinite 
variety of combination. In the internal divi- 
sions, the principal supports being of large di- 
mensions you could have brick, or plastering, or 
timber lining, as you chose. I do not enter 
into details, although they are easily sup- 
plied, lest it be supposed that this paper is too 
exclusively professional. 
The great charm of this style is the facility it 
affords for colour — and to the tropical eye 
colour is a banquet which, not to have, is to 
miss half the enjoyments of life that sight can 
give. In those calm and austere temples which 
fling their shadows from the summits of the 
iEginetan steeps and compelled the admiration 
of the philosophic Greek — in the ponderous 
courts of Egyptian mass and grandeur — in the 
i complicated decoration of those palaces of the 
I Assyrian Kings which Layard has laid open to 
| the world — in the dwellings and shops even of 
| Pompeii, not less than in the Saracenic courts 
S of the Alhambra — wherever an unclouded sky 
j and unfailing sun has made a clear and brilliant 
atmosphere the commonest element in material 
enjoyment, there colour has been invariably 
sought, to modify light, to relieve the eye, and to 
give the luxury of its variety to lighten monotony 
of form. Nature itself teaches us the same lesson. 
We ordinarily speak of the gorgeousness of 
tropical colours as shown in birds, in foliage, 
in flowers ; and living within a semi-tropical 
