ARCHITECTURE. 
rent', and from his imitative disposition, 
wotild be compelled by. pressing necessity 
to form some kind of habitation where he 
might breathe the temperate air, amid the 
summer’s heat, or winter’s cold, secure him- 
self from the attacks of ferocious animals, 
and when nature calls he might rest and 
sleep in ease and security. It is probable 
that the original habitations of men were 
natural caverns in the earth, and hollows in 
the trunks of trees. Also, from the example 
of brutes, he might excavate the ground ; 
but being disgusted with darkness and 
damps, taking example from the birds, he 
would begin to build huts of such materials 
as the situations would afford : the natural 
caverns might Suggest the idea of using earth 
or stones. That the first attempts at build- 
ing must have been extremely rude there 
can be little doubt ; men, without cutting 
instruments or tools, could not shape, smooth, 
break, and join timbers or stones, as they 
do in the present day ; timbers could only 
be supported by balancing each other, or 
driving them fast into the ground, or piling 
stones or other materials around their lower 
ends, or interlacing them with slender twigs 
or boughs. 
It is reasonable to conjecture, that wher- 
ever wood is found, the primitive hut would 
be constructed of a conic figure, not only 
from its form being the most simple of alt 
solids, but also from the ease with which 
this covering is made. The builder collect- 
ing a few boughs, and perhaps breaking 
them to determinate lengths, would support 
them by leaning them against each other at 
the top, and spreading them out at the bot- 
tom, so as to make the interior of sufficient 
capacity, leaving an aperture on one side 
for entrance : the interstices he would in- 
terweave with smaller branches, and to ren- 
der it impervious to disagreeable changes, 
or excesses of the surrounding element, he 
would plaster the interstices with mud, 
Slime, or clay ; such are the wigwams of the 
North American Indians, and the kraals of 
the Hottentots and Caffrees, in the present 
day. It would not be long before the inha- 
bitant saw the inconvenience of the simple 
conic form, on account of its inclined sides, 
in preventing him from standing erect at 
the extremities of the floor. His former 
dwelling would readily suggest the plan on 
which he was to build. He might perhaps be- 
gin to dispose the timbers upright, and fasten 
their bottom ends as above, or by setting them 
upon the ground only, and interweaving in- 
terstices in the manner of basket wpTk; or 
perhaps by combining both these methods' 
together, so as to make his hut still more 
durable : in this manner the first walls 
might have been made, or by collecting the 
most portable and shapely stones, and rear- 
ing a rough wall to a sufficient height : the 
roof would be constructed of the conic or 
pyramidal figure, as formerly, and the whole 
plastered over with mud, or any other tena- 
cious material. 
As mankind began to associate, they 
would improve each other by degrees ; and 
having found the use of tools, trunks of trees, 
divested of their bark and branches, would 
be used as pillars^ and beams or lintels, in- 
stead of ramified boughs. In this improved 
state of joining and cutting the timbers, the 
beams would no doubt suggest a rectilineal 
plan instead of the circular one, as beams of 
the circular form could not be so readily 
procured as those of the straight form, the 
triangle being the only figure that includes 
a space by the fewest sides, it may first have 
been employed for the plan; but finding 
this form of building inconvenient, on ac- 
count of the acuteness of its angles, the 
rectangle would be adopted in its stead, the 
hut erected thereon would have the form of 
a rectangular prism, which figure has been 
generally retained to the present day, witli 
little variation, by almost the whole inhabi- 
tants of the globe, and exactly by those who 
live in the mildest climates ; but in countries 
liable to rain, pyramidal and wedge-formed 
roofs have been constantly in use. Front 
this state of the hut has civil architecture 
advanced progressively to the present state 
of improvement. Vetravius, the most an- 
cient writer of architecture, informs us nearly 
as above, in the following words : 
“ Mankind began to make themselves 
coverings with the boughs of trees ; some 
dog caves in the mountains ; and others, in 
imitation of the nests of swallows, with 
sprigs and loam made shelters which they 
might lye under; and by observing each 
others work and turning their thoughts to 
discover something new, they by degrees 
improved and made better kinds of habita- 
tions ; but men being of an imitative and 
docile nature, glorying in their daily inven- 
tions, and shewing one another the houses 
they had made, they by these endeavours 
and exertions of their faculties became in 
time more skilful. 
“ At first for the walls they erected fork- 
ed stakes, and disposing twigs between 
them, covered them with loam ; others piled 
up dry clods of clay, binding them together 
