House 
Vo... XII 
AUGUST, 1907 
No. 2 
Bungalows, What They Really Are 
The Frequent Misapplication of the Name 
By SEYMOUR E. LOCKE 
F ROM India to California is a far cry. The 
Englishman in the Far East, over two cen¬ 
turies ago, devised a form of habitation 
which to-day is being copied in many of its character¬ 
istics by the American in the Far West. When 
John Bull first sent his sons into the wilds of 
India to open up the avenues of trade along which 
vast wealth was soon to be moving into the coffers 
of the old Trading Companies, climatic conditions 
were encountered, which rendered life a very uncer¬ 
tain thing for the white man. 
The dangers and discomforts of torrential rains, 
tropical humidity and long droughts had to be met 
and the consequences minimized by the application 
of rational preventive measures. 
This led to the planning of a form of house which 
would most nearly fill the requirements of protection 
from the elements direct as well as reduce the danger 
from the atmosphere impregnated with fever-laden 
moisture which the hot sun drew from the ground 
after the rains had ceased. 
The native houses had the mother earth for floors, 
which after a rain and aided by the hot sun exhaled 
a poison as deadly as it was insidious. To mitigate 
Copyright, 1907, hy Tl\c John C. Winston Co. 
45 
