A
OR A
NEW, C-HEAP, CONVENIENT,
AND SUPERIOR
MODE OF BUILDING.
BY O. S. FOWLER,
AUTHOR OF VARIOUS PHRENOLOGICAL WORKS.
NEW  YORK:
FOWLERS AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS,
PHRENOLOGICAL CABINET, 131 NASSAU STREET.
SOLD BY BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY.
==: I_ 1 








HOME FOR ALL:
OR A
NEW, CHEAP, CONVENIENT,
AND SUPERIOR
MODE OF BUILDING.
BY O. S. FOWLER,
AUTHOR OF VARIOUS PHRENOLOGICAL WORKS.
"HOME, SWEET, SWEET HOME.'
NEW YORK:
FOWLERS AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS,
PHRENOLOGICAL CABINET, 131 NASSAU STREET.
SOLD BY BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY.
1850.




Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1848,
BY O. S. FOWLER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.




CONTENTS.
SECTION I.
HOME-ITS NECESSITY AND PERFECTION.
PAGE.
1. A new mode of building-its history and philosophy,..     5
2. Man's requisition for a home,..... 7
3. A poor man's home,.                                              9
4. A good home,....11
5. The pleasure of building,....                     14
6. What constitutes a perfect home,.... 18
7. A good building spot,..... 20
8. The defects in existing shapes of houses,..                     21
9. Long and narrow houses,..                                     23
10. A winged house objectionable,...... 25
11. The cottage or Doric style,....         30
12. Comparison of the square with the octagon,.... 34
13. The comparative beauty of the Doric, square, and octagon forms,  40
14. Board walls in place of frames,..... 41
15. The comparative cost of board walls,.....    45
16. The quality of this board wall,.... 49
17. Vermin excluded by board walls,...              50
18. Board walls for the basement story,.... 52
19. Inside plans of the octagon style....    53
20. Comparison of this mansion with a twenty-seven feet octagon,. 59
21. The superb arrangement of its rooms,...  60
22. The third story of the octagon,...... 64
23. Its superiority for large families and parties,...      84
24. A rain-water cistern,.....                                89
25. The roof,.......... 90
26. The outside finish of houses,.....                          92
27. Inside finish,....... 94








HOME, AND ITS ARCHITECTURE,
SECTION  I.
HOME-ITS NECESSITY AND PERFECTION.. A NEW MODE OF BUILDING —ITS HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHYts
No invention can be of greater practical utility to man
than one which shall CHEAPEN AND IMPROVE OUR HOUSES, and
especially which shall bring comfortable dwellings within
the reach of the poorer classes.  Such an invention it is
the object of this volume to expound. It points out a mode
of constructing private residences and public buildings at
much less than their present cost, and every way more
beautiful, convenient, and comfortable throughout. Except
in a single particular, it is an original invention of the author.
To begin with the history of its discovery, in order to facilitate its complete understanding.
In 1842 I purchased a few acres of land, on which was a
fine building spot, commanding a fine and extensive landscape
prospect of the banks of the Hudson, and-of both the Catskill
and Fishkill ranges of mountains. While looking about, in my
professional tours, for some pattern of a house after which to
build, I saw, in Central New York, houses constructed WHOLLY
OF BOARnDS and WITHOUT FRAMES, though only one story. I
liked the plan so well, that I immediately ordered boards
sawed as required by this plan, and drew a plan after which
to build it.
The timber arrived in the summer of 1843, and in the spring
of 1844 I planned a small addition to my old house, to accom.
modate us while erecting the new, and left on a professional
tour. Meanwhile the carpenter, in laying out the foundation,
1*




A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
not understanding my purpose, insisted on having an ENTRY,
to which Mrs. F. assented, supposing I had forgotten this feature of it; and this made it a house, whereas I wanted only an
ADDITION. Returning and finding the foundation planned for
an entry, I let it go so, and finally concluded to make it a story
higher than I at first designed, and have it do me till I was better
able to build to my liking. But, as it was erected without
any concerted plan, and therefore quite inconvenient, I continued my search for a PATTERN after which to build the home
of my future years. My professional tours showed me all the
new improvements as fast as they appeared. I read Downing and others on this subject, but none suited me, for reasons
to be given soon. I kept continually asking myself, " Why so
little progress in ARCHITECTURE, when there is so much in all
other matters? We continue to build in the same square
form adopted by all past ages. Is this necessary? Cannot
some RADICAL change for the better be adopted, both as to the
external form of houses, and their internal arrangement of
rooms?" And in looking about for some general plan, I said
to myself, "Why not take our pattern from NATURE? Her
tbrms are mostly SPHERICAL. She has ten thousand globular
or cylindrical forms to one square one. Indeed, how very
few squares we see in nature. Why not, then, adopt this
spherical form for houses? It is adopted in fruits, eggs,
grain, etc., so as to enclose the greatest amount in the smallest
compass, and also the better to secure them against injuries.
What should we think of a square apple, or right-angled
egg?" Taught in college the mathematical principle, that a
spherical surface enclosed more, in proportion, than any
other shape, and knowing that this was one end secured by
the rounding shape of fruits, grains, potatoes, the head, etc.,
while greater protection is another, I said, "Why not build
our HOUSES in a spherical, instead of square form?" " Because they cannot be FRAMED without costing more extra
than is gained," was the practical answer. " But this BOARD
wall can be constructed at any other angle as well as a right
angle," thought I. "Then why not have our houses six,
eight, twelve, or twenty-sided? Why not build after some
mathematical figure?" I inquired. I had it. The PRINCIPLE
involved in the architectural improvement here submitted




MAN S REQUISITION FOR A HOME.            7
to lovers both of home and architecture, was thus seized
upon and applied to this board-wall plan, and this combination of both gave birth to the architectural plans which
we shall now proceed to develop.
2. MAN'S REQUISITION FOR A HOME.
Every living thing has its HOME. "Foxes have holes," and
squirrels, rats, reptiles, and all burrowing animals, excavate
habitations in the earth, in which they shelter themselves
from the merciless storm and the piercing cold, to which
they flee for safety from the face of danger, and where they
bring forth and  rear their young.  Ants, bugs, beetles,
crickets, and even worms, dig themselves holes, in which to
live and breed, while the more ingenious bee builds its sixsided cells for storing its winter's provender, and reproducing
its species. Bears and wolves have their homes in deep
hollow trees or dark caverns; and even fishes deposit their
spawn in crevices among the rocks, which serve as temporary habitations for their young.
Fowls, endowed with a higher order of Constructiveness,
choose their domicil, and erect their habitation, strengthened
by timbers of twigs, plastered with mud, and softened with
down, and there live together in love till they produce and
rear the children of their happy union. Eagles build in the
rugged crag, hawks in the high tree, and ducks in the miry
marsh; but all build themselves HABITATIONS, each after its
own taste.
This home-providing principle equally pervades the entire
vegetable kingdom. Every tree has its home in the cleft
of the mountain rock, or by the rich banks of the running
stream, and every species of herb appropriates to itself a
place where it plants its roots and builds its cylindrical walls
and leafy roof. So, too, the stem of the apple, or the nut, is
the home of its birth and its youth, till it becomes sufficiently
matured to put forth in search of some permanent residence,
where it can reproduce its kind. Even every seed has its
own chamber and bed in its parental homestead —every ear
of corn its home on its stalk, and its husky walls for shade
and shelter, while every kernel of grain has its own nest, and




8               A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
every seed its temporary place of abode. The very hills
make themselves residences, and the waters have their places
of abode, while the earth and the planets traverse their own
cycles in the fields of space, which no foreign foot molests.
Thus every thing in nature has its home, and in turn becomes
an abode for life, enjoyment, and development.
And is man an exception to this great HOME law? No;
but, on the contrary, he is its most perfect exemplification.
Endowed with the primitive faculty of Inhabitiveness, he
seeks and craves a home just as he does food or friends, and
for a kindred reason, namely, the resistless longings of a
primitive element of his mind, implanted for the purpose of
COMPELLING him to seek an abiding-place, which shall be the
centre of most of the joys of life. Nor ought any to deny
themselves homes; but all should provide themselves with
a temporary or permanent residence; as much as with food or
clothes-which are only cloth houses fitted closely, so that
they can be carried about with us. As we set apart no
inconsiderable portion of our time to procure food-or what
is tantamount, to earn money to pay board —so all should
appropriate as -much time to procure and improve homes,
and furnish them with the comforts of life. More especially
ought every MARRIED pair to procure a permanent RESIDENCE
for themselves and families, because, without them, one powerful faculty must suffer perpetual abrasion, and most of the
rest a great diminution of action and consequent pleasure.
This "moving" every few months or years is alike destructive
of property and enjoyment, besides the enormous costliness
of rent. It greatly diminishes planting, and cripples all sorts
of husbandry, prevents setting out trees, and keeps tenants
from having things GROWING, besides obliging them to go,
money in hand, for every little thing wanted in the family,
the expensiveness of which is ruinous even to the healthy,
but death to the sickly. None can ever know the worth of a
home but those who have once had one and lost it, and, after
having been long cast out upon stone-hearted landlords,
finally reobtained a comfortable domicil, and set down under
their OWN grape vines and fruit trees. Father, mother, whoever thou art, heed this important advice-PRovIDE A HOME,
whatever else you may do or leave undone. However great




A POOR MAN S HOME.                            9
your privations, however astringent your poverty, get a
HOME FIRST, and the greater your destitution, the more need
have  you of providing  a home-no  matter how  homelymerely as a means of escaping that poverty.
3.  A POOR MAN'S HOME.
But you plead utter inability. In this you err. You are
far better able to get you a residence, if it is only a turf
hovel, than to live without one. Say to some land-owner,
"Lease or sell me a small piece of your land."* If you
cannot get a lot on the public highway, take up with one in
the fields or woods, and pay your purchase money or rent in
work, if you have no money. Then bank up with dirt, if
you are too poor to procure boards, and live on bread and
water, or boiled wheat and corn-you  will not starve, nor
your children, on this fare, but be all the better-till you can
earn a few dollard to render your hovel passable for the time
being. Plant some pear and apple seeds, and peach and
cherry pits, and, when grown, bud and transplant them.
Lay by all you now pay for rent, and all you save by
having a place to raise vegetables and keep a cow, and in a
year you will have enough to BUY your leased land, and put
* This pre-emption right to actual settlers is a law of nature. Land, like air
and water, is the common heritage and constitutional birthright of every human
being, and belongs equally to all. Only the IMPROVEMENTS on lands can justly
be called private property. God gives a quit-claim deed to every one of his children of as much land as, well tilled, will supply them with the necessaries of life;
and this putting of a government deed of vast tracts into land-holding pockets, on
which to speculate, and making the poor pay an exorbitant tax for the right to
cultivate, is a violation of the laws of nature. Whence did government obtain its
right to sell?  Of the Indian. And where he his? Echo answers, Where?  I
go for free lands, as well as free air and light, and for precisely the same reason.
I would make all unimproved lands public property, till improved by actual settlers, and then only these IMPROVEMENTS saleable. Yet I would protect their
maker and purchaser in them, as much as we now do the land itself.
The proposed law for rendering the homestead inalienable, and not liable for
debt, has my cordial support. Many coax customers to run into debt just
to get hold of their homes for a song. Such a law would injure no one, for sellers
would then trust with their eyes open, and trust the MAN, instead of, as now, his
house; and this would make men honest, because otherwise they could not be
trusted. The seller, when solicited to trust, would say, practically, "You did not
pay Mr. B., and I fear I shall not get my pay;" and this would make men prompt.
Tt would also substitute the CASH for the credit system.




10             A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
you up a small house on the plan proposed in this work. I
speak now of those who have not a dollar in the world with
which to begin. And the poorer a man is, the greater the
need of his adopting this home policy in some form —of
course, in the best form he can. You greatly mistake when
you think yourself too POOR to have a home. The poorer
you are, the better able you are to procure one, or, rather,
the LESS able to do WITHOUT one. Your poverty is the very
reason why you should build.
But perhaps you, or your wife, or your daughters, are
too proud to live in a house as inferior as your present
stringent circumstances would compel you to build. This
is, doubtless, where the shoe pinches. Then let it pinch
on. Those who, whether in high life or low, are too proud
to CONFORM TO EXISTING CIRCUMSTANCES, are quite welcome
to endure the pressure of adversity on the corns of pride.
Do as you like, but "hear my opinion."  I consider it no
disgrace to BE poor, but I do consider it disreputable to
REMAIN SO any great length of time. He who, in a country of liberty and plenty, cannot rise from the deepest poverty to comparative comfort, lacks either the wisdom to
plan, or the energy to'execute, his liberation from his
galling yoke. Sickness-his own or that of his familymay retard his deliverance; but he can and should know
HOW TO RESTORE AND PRESERVE HEALTH.* Any healthy, industrious, and intellectual man, however large his family, can,
by due FORETHOUGHT and MANAGEMENT, soon rise from poverty to comfort, and then to affluence.
" But I have nothing with which to BEGIN," is the discouraged response. Then MAKE something. I know that "the
destruction of the poor is their poverty," but, granted that
you have nothing but your hands and to-day's provisions,
with to-day's work bring home a bushel of corn: get no tea,
or coffee, or sugars, or spices, or meats, but live WHOLLY on
BOILED CORN till it is gone. Meanwhile, you can earn several
bushels more-probably a month's supply. Or, if you prefer
a change, substitute beans, wheat, rice, hommony, Indian in
its various forms, brown bread, etc. But live on one or two
* See ta discussion of this point in " Physiology, Animal and Mental," pages 22,
24, 26, 27.




A GOOD HOME.                    11
kinds of food, without even butter; for hunger makes the
best sauce. If you can afford fruit, stewed or raw, so much
the better; and grain and fruit will support life and strength
in all their vigor for months, and even years. Indeed, you
will probably feel stronger and better able to work on them
than on your present fare. All these extras, instead of being
essential to health, only impair it. You can hardly live too
plainly. Boiled wheat or corn alone, with apples, will relish
first rate, and keep you strong and hearty for months and
years. By living in this plain way, you can save at least
THREE FOURTHS of your wages for a house. In a month you
can save enough to buy a few square rods of ground, sufficient for a home; and in another month you can save enough
more to build a rude hut, sufficient to stop rent and set things
to growing; and in a year you can build a house on the plan
here proposed, and in another year fill it with furniture and
comforts. I repeat, there is no need of a man's being too
poor to own a homestead, and the poorer he is, the more able
he is to pursue some such home-erecting policy; and a home
once created, he can soon turn himself as he likes.
But, to return from this partial digression with this sacred
injunction: Let every one set apart as much of his time and
means for a home as he does for food or clothes, as the best
means of providing the latter; and then let him GROW things,
instead of buying them.
4. A GOOD HOME.
Nor should we be contented with a Poor home. On the
contrary, we should provide the BEST one we can. The
residences of the various tribes of animals bear a close analogy to their characters.  Thus, low-bred, coarse-grained,
inferior animals make inferior homes, of which worms, moths,
etc., furnish examples. So, too, foxes, squirrels, ground-hogs,
snakes, eels, etc., are low-minded and inferior, and creep or
run upon the ground, and accordingly burrow in the earth.
Yet their habitations, like their characters, far surpass those
of animals below them, while the beaver, higher in the scale
of mentality, builds him a better habitation. So beasts of
prey seek some dark hole or cavern in which to hide away




12             A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
from the sunlight, from which to steal forth in search of
hapless objects of prey, and in which to deposit their plunder,
Walking and swimming fowls build on the ground, while
soaring ones build in trees. Innocent singing birds build in
low trees, near the residence of man, while the hawk chooses
the tall, thick forest, and the soaring eagle the towering cliff.
Throughout all nature the ABODES of all animals correspond
perfectly with their characters, so that the latter can be safely
predicated from the former.
This is equally true of man. The half-human, half-brute
orang-outang constructs a rude hut of sticks and bushes,
while the more advanced Bosjowan builds a habitation a little
better, but of the lowest class of human architecture, as he is
at the bottom of the ladder. The Hottentot, Carib, Indian,
Malay, and Caucasian, build houses better, and still better, the
higher the order of their mentality.
This same law equally governs individuals. Thoses vho
are content to live in old rookeries, when they possess the
means of building palaces, and perhaps erect splendid houses
to rent, have sordid souls, and only need paws to make them
woodchucks. So, too, those who build better barns for their
cattle than houses for their children, are both unwise and
inhuman. Those who are destitute of refinement will build
some outlandish tenement, as unsightly in looks as inconvenient in arrangement, while those who possess refinement
and correct taste will build a neat, tidy, well-proportioned,
good-looking edifice, and one as useful as it is beautiful.
Lazy-minded, contented, easy souls, whose aspirations are
low and weak, will build in hollows and rear low houses,
while those who are lofty, aspiring, and high in character
and aims, will build on eminences, and erect high houses. The
ruins of Pompeii show only two houses above one story,
which coincides with our theory. Men with the eagle form
of nose and physiognomy, like Tristram Burgess, of Rhode
Island, called in Congress " the bald eagle," will build on high
ground, where they can have a commanding prospect, while
those of a rabbit or squirrel form of teeth and face will dig
their foundation in a bank, so that they can have a CELLAR
KITCHEN; and thus of other subjects.
But especially will a man's INTELLECT show itself in the




MEN S HOUSES INDICES OF THEIR TASTES.       13
house he builds. If he lets the mechanic play with his fancy
and his pockets, by persuading him to build after this or that
gaudy fashion, because it is popular, and popular because it is
expensive, he shows the absence either of independence of
mind or clearness of perception. While those of immatured
tastes will build a try-to-be-extra exquisite monument of their
weakness, those of well-balanced minds and good practical
judgment will devise a comfortable and convenient mansion,
TRISTRAM BURGESS, OF RHODE ISLAND.
which they will finish off in a higher and still higher order of
taste, according to their several casts of mentality. Indeed,
the more powerful a man's intellect, and the better balanced
his mind, the more perfect mansion will he construct.
Of course this general rule has a great many exceptions
both ways. A man of a high order of mind may live in a
poor house from necessity, from habit, from an unwillingness




14               A. NEW  MODE OF BUILDING.
to tear down the abode of his earlier years, or from sheer
inattention, while others of poorer minds may build fine
houses, yet owe them more to their carpenters, or to fortuitous circumstances, than to themselves. So a thousand other
causes may prevent given individuals from carrying out their
respective tastes, yet, as a general rule, a fancy man will
build a fancy house; a practical man, a convenient house; a
substantial man, a solid edifice; a weak man, an ill-arranged
house; a well-constituted man, a good house, etc. And this
diversity of tastes is well, for it gives a beautiful variety to
our towns and villas. Yet this diversity is compatible with a
high order of beauty and utility, and even promotive of both.
5. THE PLEASURE OF BUILDING.
Since man must have houses to shelter him from the
pelting storm and winter's blast, nature has kindly provided
him with a BUILDING INSTINCT, called, in phrenological language, CONSTRUCTIVENESS.  AS a knowledge of the true
function of this faculty will facilitate our architectural progress, we will quote our analysis of it as given in "SELFCULTURE:","The MAKING instinct and talent; manual dexterity in using TOOLS;
INGENUITY; sleight of hand in CONSTRUCTING things, and turning off
WORK, or whatever is done with the HANDS; disposition and ability to
TINKER, MEND, FIX UP, MAKE, BUILD, MANUFACTURE, employ MACHINERY, and the like.
" LARGE Constructiveness loves to make, and gives an excellent practical idea of the best mode of constructing things, as well as manual skill
and dexterity in executing all kinds of work, writing, drawing, sewing,
folding, managing machinery, packings, and whatever we do with our
hands. It also relates to the construction of ideas in sentences, discourses, and works.
" SMALL Constructiveness is deficient in these respects, awkward in
manual exertion, fails in understanding and working machinery, writes
and uses tools bunglingly, and lacks mental as well as physical construction.
"Located two inches forward, and one upward of Acquisitiveness.
"Every thing which is, is MADE. All nature is one vast workshop, and
all things in and on the earth are the manufactured wares of the great
MAKER of the Universe. And the skill and ingenuity displayed in every
work of his hands are indeed infinite! Every thing constructed in the




THE PLEASURE OF BUILDING.                     15
best possible manner to subserve the great end of its creation. Every
organ perfect in formation and function, and located just where it can execute its mission to the'best advantage! Behold the infinite mechanical
perfection of the eye, ear, lungs, heart! How infinitely minute, yet perfect, the capillary ramifications of blood-vessels, glands, nerves, muscles,
fibres, etc.! How inimitably perfect in invention and execution the mechanism of the human body! Nothing superfluous-nothing wanted but is
supplied. Its functions, how numerous, how complicated, how efficient!
Yet every one of them effected by some INSTRUMENTALITY, for nature
never works without tools. Though we do not understand a hundredth
part of those contrivances employed throughout the human body, yet what
we do understand is worthy of all admiration.
"The Infinite Mechanist of the Universe has also stamped upon all his
works certain mechanical laws, which are generally SELF-ACTING. Of
this the heart, lungs, stomach, and all our physical functions furnish examples. They'whistle themselves' in their growth, their various functions, and their decline.
" This self-acting principle doubtless moves the earth, sun, and stars
through their immense cycles, and both generates and applies the power
required to propel such huge masses with such mighty velocity and precision. The Newtonian theory is probably incorrect. The true one will
doubtless be found to proceed on certain simple, yet efficient mechanical
principles-to embrace a self-moving and self-regulating law of perpetual
motion. That principle undoubtedly exists in nature, and will yet be discovered and applied by man-not by any arrangement of machinery, but
by the generation and combination probably of some application of those
two forces-self-attracting and repelling-which constitute magnetism,
light, heat, galvanism-all the same-and which produce growth, and
probably constitute the motive power of universal nature.
"But however perfect all that physical mechanism of nature which
attains ends so countless in number and promotive of happiness, yet all
this is nothing compared with the mechanism manifested in the construction of the human mind. Here, all attempts at description only beggar it.
None but the profound phrenologist can comprehend its beauty or perfection, nor he only begin. I admire the works of God —full of the divinity
of their Infinite Author. But thou, O mind! excellest them all. Think
of it! The creation of an immaterial, immortal, sentient, and thinking
entity, capable of all the varied emotions, desires, and operations, we perform, and in such almost angelic power!  0, thou Maker of heaven,
earth, and the human soul! thy works, like thyself, are indeed infinite'
And thy last, thy most perfect.' Here the WIHOLE Deity is shown.'
"Man, too, is endowed with this making instinct and capability. Constituted so as to require houses, garments, tools, agricultural, mechanical,
and other implements, as well as machinery, without this faculty adapted
to such requisition, he could never make a single article, nor do any thing
whatever with his hands. But with it, the farmer, mechanic, and laborer
execute every stroke with the hammer, saw, ax, scythe, and every other




16                 A NEW  MODE OF BUILDING.
tool used by man: the builder constructs houses and palaces; the machinist invents and constructs labor-saving machinery of all kinds, and
therewith makes all sorts of fabrics and articles of comfort and luxury;
and even compels water, wind, and steam to become his workmen. Behold that floating palace! See her plow the mighty deep, perform her
prescribed voyages, and even outride that terrific gale! Every breeze,
from whatever quarter, propels her forward. The very winds are her
servants. See the innumerable machines all over the land, executing all
sorts of labor for the comfort of man! Behold the human face divine
transferred to canvas and the Daguerrian disk!  How beautiful, how
necessary, the possession of this faculty of man; and how innumerable
and great the good it confers!
" A faculty thus promotive of human happiness should, of course, be cultivated. The idea that none but mechanics require this element, is a
great mistake. Every human being uses it, in all to which he puts his
hands. All farmers and workers in any and all sorts of manual occupations; all merchants, in putting up, taking down, cutting, packing, folding,
and wrapping their goods; all who use the pen in making letters and
words; all who frame books, essays, paragraphs, or sentences; all who
speak in public or converse in private, or even think or feel; all who do
any thing, in whatever they do, as well as mechanics proper-all mankind,
rich and poor, wise and foolish, old and young-require and use this constructing instinct and capability. All should, therefore, cultivate itartists, mechanics, operatives, and workers, that they may excel in their
respective pursuits-and still more those who would live by or enjoy
their mental powers.
" Skill in the use of tools is of incalculable value to all. It will enable
them to execute many jobs, trifling and important, which they can do for
themselves better than any one else can do for them.'Its cultivation will also greatly facilitate that muscular exercise shown
in' Physiology' to be indispensable to health and talents. On this account,
if no other, the rich should perform some kind of manual labor daily. But
we need not repeat.
",A  good CHIROGRAPHrY-a plain, easy, and rapid formation of letters
and words-is of great utility in all stations in life, and is secured in part
by Constructiveness, and should be cultivated by all. And to acquire this,
DRAWING should be taught along with writing. Both consist in transferring FORMS to paper, and greatly aid each other. In fact, reading, writing,
and drawing are virtually one, and should be taught together. On this
point, Hon. Horace Mann, state superintendent of Massachusetts' schools,
says, in a report of visits to schools in Europe:' Such excellent handwriting as I saw in the Prussian schools, I never saw before. I can
hardly express myself too strongly on this point. In Great Britain,
France, or in our own country, I have never seen schools worthy to be
compared with theirs in this respect. This superiority cannot be attributed in any degree to a better manner of holding the pen, for I never saw
so great a Proportion in any schools where the pen is so awkwardly held.




THE PLEASURE OF BUILDING.                      17
This excellence must be referred, in a great degree, to the universal practice of drawing contemporaneously with learning to write. I believe a child
will learn both to draw and write sooner and with more ease than he will
learn writing alone. In the course of my tour, I passed from countries
where almost every pupil in the school could draw with ease, and most of
them with no inconsiderable degree of beauty and expression, to those
where drawing was not practiced at all, and I came to the conclusion that,
with no other guide but the copy-books of the pupils, I could tell whether
drawing were taught in school or not.';' Mr. Mann adds:'Drawing, of itself, is an expressive and beautiful
language. A few strokes of the pen, or pencil, will often represent to the
eye what no amount of words, however well chosen, can communicate.
For the master architect, for the engraver, the engineer, the patterndesigner, the draughtsman, moulder, machine-builder, or head mechanic
of any kind, all acknowledge that this art is essential and indispensable.
But there is no department of business or condition of life where this
accomplishment would not be of utility.'
" This faculty should, of course, be cultivated in children. In them, this
organ is usually large, and faculty active, and hence their fondness for
hammers, nails, knives, and tools. This tool-using propensity should be
indulged, and they encouraged to make and use kites, windmills, milldams,
water-wheels, bows and arrows, cross-guns, miniature sleds, boats, railroads, steam-engines, etc. Instead of this, when boys draw pictures on
slates, in place of ciphering, they are scolded or chastised. LET DRAWING BE ENCOURAGED. I would give a handsome proportion of all I am
worth to be able to draw accurately, so that I could sketch and draw,
exactly to suit me, such phrenological heads and illustrations as I often
meet in real life; whereas now, I am compelled to obtain but few, and
then to trust to artists who do not understand Phrenology.* Furnish children with tools. Let them have knives, and be encouraged to whittle,
carve, make sleds, wagons, etc., and even have a shop of their own, supplied with tools with which to tinker. And this is doubly important to
those who are delicate, as a means of strengthening their muscles, drawing the blood and energies from their heads to their muscles, and equalizing their circulation."
Since every faculty was given us to be vigorously EXERCISED, of course this important one should not be allowed to
remain inactive. And how can it be employed to better
advantage than in constructing houses? Indeed, this is one
of the PRIMARY ends it was created to subserve. And, to
* The importance of combining a knowledge of Phrenology with the arts,
especially with portrait painting and engraving, is very great, and too apparent
to require comment. In a few years every artist must be a phrenologist, or be
out of employ.
2




18             A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
render such provision of houses CERTAIN, nature has rendered it among the most pleasurable offices in which we
can engage. Mankind, in their civilized state, have a literal
MANIA for building, which increases as civilization advances.
As birds seem to be full of delight while building their nests,
so man is perfectly happy while building, notwithstanding its
expensiveness. And this strong natural instinct should be
gratified, and even cultivated. Since few things contribute
equally to human happiness, and especially since houses are
so very high, more should be erected, so that even the poor
can find shelter. And year after year should add one comfort and improvement after another to our homes, till the
earth becomes literally studded with paradises, full of life
and happiness.
Since many men have many minds about a dwelling, our
next inquiry is.
6. WHAT CONSTITUTES A PERFECT HOME?
That which combines the most facilities for enjoyment,
with more especial reference to FAMILY comforts. This is
the sole end of having a dwelling, and all we can rationally
seek in one. How, then, can THIS end be secured? This
inquiry we hope to answer throughout the progress of the
volume. Meanwhile, let us consider a few of the grand
principles which govern this matter.
To ENCLOSE SPACE is the first and main object in building.
This is done by MAKING WALLs —and we will call roof, ceilings, floors, doors, windows, etc., walls.
STRENGTH AND TIGHTNESS are also required, the former
to resist blasts, and the latter to exclude rains and colds.
Light, ventilation, cleanliness, dryness, etc., embrace other
sobjects; but of these as we proceed.
RooMs convenient, easy of access, etc., should also be
secured, and especially such an arrangement of them as shall
facilitate "HOUSEWORK."  Every housekeeper knows that it
requires twice the labor to do a given amount of work in
some houses that it does in others. Now, to have the rooms
and their accompaniments so constructed as to have every
thing handy  and convenient-a place for every thing and




WHAT CONSTITUTES A PERFECT HOME?          19
every thing in its place-is indeed a great desideratum.
How much fretfulness and ill-temper an unhandy house occasions. Nor does the evil end here. It often-generallysours the tempers of children, even BEFORE BIRTH, by perpetually irritating their mothers, and thus renders the whole family
bad dispositioned BY NATURE, whereas a convenient house
would have rendered them amiable and good.
WARMTH, easy, cheap, and complete, is also a great desideratum, because so promotive of comfort. What pleasure
can be taken in a barn of a house, all open, and the chilling
winds perpetually pouring in through a thousand crevices,
so that you freeze one side while you roast the other-every
thing frozen in winter, or your sleeping-rooms small, low,
close, and right under a thin roof, so that you swelter the
forepart of an August night, and perhaps catch a death-cold
toward morning-and one or another of the family sick
most of the time, or else now and then falling into premature
graves?
CHEAPNESS is another matter, to some, and especially to
the poor, of great importance.  Indeed, all should inquire
bow they can build the best house with the least means. Not
that I would stint a house, or sacrifice utility on the altar of'
cheapness, for, as already stated, I believe in appropriating
no inconsiderable a portion of our earnings to improving
home; but be the sum thus appropriated greater or smaller?
all should strive to make the most of it, that is, to combine
as many comforts for their money as possible. However
rich a builder may be, he should WASTE nothing, but, after
disbursing every dollar wisely and economically, should give
the balance to some poor neighbor. Yet time and mone-y
are wisely spent which add to the real solid pleasures of
home and family. All of us shamefully neglect this essential
point. We carelessly tolerate evils and miseries by the score
for days and years which a few hours or dollars would remove. We fail to give our domicils their due proportion of
our time and funds. No matter what a house does cost, so
that it is GOOD. Better spend our funds for this than for thousands of those things on which we now well-nigh waste it.
Let others spend their money for balls, fashions, etc., but let
me spend mine for a real family homestend: and then let me




20             A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
year by year, spend no small part of my income in adorning
and improving it, till, in the decline of life, I shall have a
PERFECT HOME for myself and family, surrounded with every
comfort, my land rich, my trees annually loaded with every
variety of the choicest fruits, and the whole supplied with
every thing that can conduce to beauty, utility, and comfort.
Let every one procure as good a house as he is able-even
better than most think they can afford, though at the sacrifice
of many other things-but build as cheap as possible for the
value.
Yet there are few things on which men can, and do, literally
squander money as foolishly as in building. To build without
a plan, or with a crude one, and then to alter this, and patch
on that, is as wrong as it is imbecile. See how unwise
C, of Boston, is, in so often altering and remodeling
his house. GET ALL READY before you lay the first stone.
Especially MATURE YOUR PLAN. Know just what you want,
and how you want it, and then how to do it. Leave less to
the mechanic, for he may care less about your house than
your money, and knowingly omit some good, or commit some
error, just to get pay for altering it, and then excuse it by
alleging that he knew nothing of how you wanted it done.
Or he may propose some costly addition, of little real value,
just to get a chance to put money in his pockets. I boss my
own buildings, and will show you in this work how to boss
yours. Besides, the judgment of carpenters is sometimes
inferior to that of common-sense men, because the former are
hide-bound in the old way, while the views of the latter are
oftener allowed to act untrammeled.
7. A GOOD BUILDING SPOT
Is another most important matter. The same money will
often build twice as good a house on one site as on another.
A superb building spot was one of three leading motives
which induced me to purchase where I did, the other two
being good water and an excellent fruit locality.
As to what constitutes a good building spot, all sorts of
conflicting opinions exist. Some prefer the valley, with its
streams and lawns; others, elevation and sightly prospects




THE DEFECTS IN EXISTING SHAPES OF HOUSES.    21
especially water scenery. I confess, my own tastes favor
the latter. Give me a beautiful landscape. This also secures
a fresh, dry atmosphere, instead of valley fogs and miasmas;
and though exposed to the bleak winds of winter, yet to what
do they amount? Are they not even bracing and healthy?
I will soon show you a plan for keeping them out of your
house, yet which gives you the full benefits of the summer's
breeze. At least, do not build in a mud-hole, but choose a
DRY locality. Yet good and convenient water is a most desirable acquisition, and springs exceed wells.
Some sites may also be exactly adapted to one kind of
house, but most miserable for another kind, and the reverse.
The two should mutually correspond with each other. This
correspondence every one who builds him a house must secure in accordance with his-own tastes.
The best FORM of house is another matter of the first magnitude, and one which opens the widest range for selection.
Some are far preferable to others, and you, of course, want
the best. More depends on this than on any other condition,
both as to beauty and utility. Indeed, this is the governing
feature of a house, and worthy of full investigation. What
shaped house, then, both general and specific, is best? This
will lead us first to consider what is NOT, or,
8. THE DEFECTS IN EXISTING SHAPES OF HOUSES.
The sole object sought in building is to ENCLOSE SPACE, or
room, and the more convenient this room can be partitioned
off the better. This space can be enclosed only by WALL of
some kind-doors, windows, ceilings, floors, roofing, foundation, etc. Now, since wall, as thus defined, embraces the only
thing about a house which costs, and since we should build as
cneaply as possible for the valuable ends sought, of course
we should cast about for that shaped house which will give
us the most room, and that the most available, for a given
amount of wall or expense. Now, some shaped houses will
contain two or three times as much room, compared with the
amount of wall, as other shaped houses. A few illustrations.
A low or one-story house contains much less room, in proportion to its wall, than a high one. The foundation and




22              A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
roof of a three-story house, say thirty by forty feet, cost no
more than for a house of one story-and these two items are
among the most expensive parts of a building-yet the former contains two hundred per cent. more room than the
latter, and all for the trifling expense of longer timbers, more
floors, doors, ceilings, chimneys, etc. You thus get THREE
1HOUSES FOR ONE, yet the cost is by no means doubled.
"But I want all my rooms on ONE FLOOR, for I don't like
this running up and down stairs-this cooking in the cellar
and living in the garret," say many. Be it so-build to your
liking. Let me tell you what I like, and my reasons. I do
not like to SLEEP on the first floor, because more or less dampness will find its way up through this floor, and induce colds,
fevers, and premature deaths.
Nor do I like to sleep close under the roof, because such
rooms are sweltering hot of a summer's evening, but become
cool toward morning; whereas I want a room between the
hot garret and damp cellar, neither heated to suffocation
when I retire, so as to compel me to throw off all the bedclothes, nor rapidly cooled during the night by dew or rain,
so as to give me a chill, but as evenly tempered as may be.
Or, if I sleep on the first floor, my cellar story must be dry
and airy.
A high house also gives a greater number of rooms, and
those more conveniently situated, than a low one. How large
a roof and foundation would it require, for a single story, to
furnish all the rooms wanted for a large family? And why
is not a bedroom as handy in the second story as the first?
Is going up stairs twice a day-once to prepare the bed, and
again to occupy it-so VERY hard a task?  To cook a story
below where you eat, is rather bad, unless a dumb waiter is
used to transport food and dishes back and forth. Yet a light,
airy basement is not so very inferior a place in which to eat.
But even of this there is no need, as we shall presently show.
And then how squatty and mean broad one-story houses
look, even if in cottage style. They are far more expensive,
and less beautiful and comfortable, than a house about as high
as it is wide. And those houses which LOOK best, generally
are so. Beauty and utility are twin sisters throughout all
nature; nor are they separated here. To appear well pro



LONG AND NARROW HOUSES.                23
portioned, small houses should, therefore, be a story and a
half, and large ones two or three stories, according to their
size.
9. LONG AND NARROW HOUSES
Are by no means the thing. They are out of all proportion,
in the first place, and, in the second, their rooms are necessarily far apart, and very inconvenient, so that you must perform quite a journey in going from one extreme to the other.
COMPACTNESS of rooms is most desirable in a house, and this
is prevented just in proportion as a house is longer than it is
wide.
Another loss consists in its taking more WALL to enclose a
given amount of room in a long and narrow than in a square
one. To illustrate by diagrams:
Fig. 1 is four inches long by a quarter of an inch wide, and
contains one square inch.
Fig. 1.
Fi g. 2 is two inches long by half an inch wide, and contains
one square inch.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3 is one inch square, and contains one square inch.
Fig. 3.




24              A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
Fig  4.
Now let Fig. 1 represent a box four feet long and a quarter
of a foot wide: it contains only one square foot; yet its out
side wall is eight and a half feet. Let Fig. 2 represent one
two feet long and half a foot wide; it also contains one square
foot, yet is only five feet in circumference; while a box one
foot square contains just as much, yet is only four feet
round-less by one half than Fig. 1, yet of the same capacity.
This same law, which governs all measurements, renders
the circumference of the circle, in proportion to its capacity,
less than that of any other figure; and, of course, the nearer
any figure approaches to the spherical, the greater will be its
capacity, compared with its surface.
Since, then, the circle gains even on the square, of course a
square house holds more, for its wall, than a long and narrow
one-and a round one than a square one. Consequently, long
and narrow houses cost more for wall, roof, foundations,
every thing, than square ones, compared with their room.
The reader is requested to master fully, and to remember, the
PRINCIPLE here demonstrated, as we shall have occasion frequently to use it throughout the volume. Indeed, it was a
knowledge of this most material fact which led to those architectural improvements which this work is written to expound.
For a similar, and also an additional reason, is




THE WINGED STYLE OBJECTIONABLE.          25
Fig. 5.
P
S
]0. A WINGED HOUSE OBJECTIONABLE.
This is a ground plan of a winged house, drawn on a scale
of sixteen feet to the inch, and represents the upright, thirtytwo by twenty-eight, and the wings, twenty-four by twentyfour each. The arrangement of the ground rooms is usually
much as here represented; P for parlor, twenty-four by six



26               A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
teen; E, entry, ten by thirty-two; S, sitting-room; B B,
bedrooms; K, kitchen; c, closets, etc.  It is, therefore, 24 +
24 + 28 = 76 feet long.* Its circumference is, then, 28 x 2 +
32 x 2 = 120 feet for the upright and gable ends of the wings,
and 24 x 4 for the rest = 96 + 120 = 216, the total circumference of the outside wall. Yet it contains only 2048 square
feet on the first floor; whereas, a square house of the same
circumference -- 216    4 -54 X 54 - 2916, or a clear GAIN
of ONE THIRD just by the mere FORM of the square house over
the winged one.  That is, if the square one costs $4000, the
winged one, though not a foot larger on the ground, would
cost $6000-an item  wvorth saving-besides the additional
expensiveness of building three small houses, as in the winged
house, instead of one, as in the square one.
Another loss accrues in the HEIGHT of these wings, which
are generally only one story high, while the upright is usually
two stories. Not to reckon the attics in either house, because
they are comparatively unused, observe that all this expense of fobundations and roofs of these wings is incurred for
a SINGLE STORY. Now, the additional expense of carrying
them up another story, would scarcely exceed, if it equaled,
the extra cost of making three frames, three sets of rafters,
plates, eave-troughs, etc., for the winged house, in place of one
in the square; and yet you have one story on each wing
MORE ROOM. Or thus: the winged house contains 24 x 24 x
2 + 32 x 28 x 2 = 2944 square feet; while the square house
contains 54 x 54 x 2 = 5832 square feet. Reduce these by
fractions, thus:
5832        729        91        18        2
2944        368        46         9        1I
That is, the square house contains just TWICE as much as the
winged one-another loss by the winged structure, of no small
moment, in ADDITION to all the others.
* For the sake of simplifying and abbreviating, mathematical signs, as generally used, will be employed in our calculations, namely: + as a sign for addition, - the sign for subtraction, -.- that for division, and X that for multiplication, while = signifies equal to. Our surn, then, reads thus: twenty-four added
to twenty-four and twenty-eight equal seventy-six feet.




THE WINGED STYLE OBJECTIONABLE.           27
If you should carry this square house up three stories, it
would contain 8748 square feet to the winged one's 2944; or,
8748       1093%       136.       27       3
-8-. —-             5 =
2944        368         46         9
or OVER THREE TIMES as much room in the square house of
three stories, as in the winged one two stories in the upright
and one story wings. Yet the square one would COST THE
LEAST. Just the FRAME of the winged one would cost considerable more than that of the three story square one.
The reason of this loss by the winged form will be seen
by referring to those dotted lines in Fig. 5, which are no
longer than the corresponding part of the walls of the
house, yet they enclose all the room  marked "lost;" and
thus of each of the other corners; so that four rooms, each
four by twenty-four, are lost by this winged form ON EACH
STORY.
Another cause of this great loss, is its great LENGTH compared with its width. See Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Another proportionate loss is sustained by the ENTRIES,
which, in houses of this kind, should be at least ten feet
wide. Thus the room lost in the winged house is 10 x 32
= 320, and double this, or 640, in the two stories; whereas
that in the double house is 54 x 10 = 540 x 2 = 1080. Subtract the 640 square feet entry of the winged house from its
2944 square feet, leaves only 2304 square feet within the
rooms; whereas subtract the 1080 square feet entry of the
square house from its 5832 square feet, we have 4752 square
feet within the rooms, which reduce:
4752        396         33        2' 12-    1 -- 12 = - — 16=
2304        192         16         1
which is MORE THAN DOUBLE the number of square feet within
the rooms bf the square house than within those of the winged
one!*
* In this, as in many like reductions of fractions and other calculations, the
remaining fractions are dropped, because too insignificant to effect the general
result.




28              A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
To present these gains and losses in a tabular form —the
circumference of each being 216 feet:
Winged house.  Square house.
No. square feet in first floor   - - - 2048  - - - 2916
No. square feet in second floor  -     896  - - - 2916
Total in both floors -  - - - - 2944  - - -  5832
Subtract the 2944 square feet in the winged house from the
5832 square feet in the square house, and there is lacking
only 88 square feet of being DOUBLE in the square house over
and above the winged one. Or, if the square house be three
stories, it will contain THREE TIMES as much as the winged
one, lacking only 84 square feet. Better sink TWO THIRDS of
your building money in the sea, and build a three story square
house with the balance, than to build a winged house with the
whole. So much for this fancy style.
And then. how they look! Wings on houses are not in
quite as good taste as on birds. How would a little apple or
peach look stuck on to each side of a large one? How foolish such a plan! Yet winged houses are just as disjointed
and out of taste. Such a house —three times as long as wide;
so low and yet so long; great outside and little inside; the
parlor less than a mile from the kitchen, and separated firom
all the rest of the house by a wide, cold, cheerless entry;
the heat radiating from every room OUT OF DOORS, instead
of into adjoining rooms, as in a square house; every room
in tle house, except the second story of the upright, absorbing dampness from  the three foundations, and all but
rfhelower story of the upright heated in summer to suffocation by the scorching sun on the roofs; the freezing winds of
winter pouring in direct from without through so much outside surface, instead of the different rooms sheltering each
other's sides; the light shining from several points of compass, whereas it should shine into each room from but one
direction, because a cross light is so bad for the'eyes; one
third of both stories of the whole upright, or 600 of the 2900
feet, or one fifth of the whole house, consumed by an entry
which is a perfect nuisance in winter and almost useless in
summer; and every thing about it so perfectly extravagant
znI L- ~       -    I' —-   -~~




THE WINGED STYLE O'BJECTIONABLE.         29
and inconvenient —let purse-proud, empty-headed nabobs
throw away themselves, their comfort, and their money, on
winged houses, but give me some other form. Surely none
will build winged houses but those who, from sheer thoughtlessness or inability, fail to perceive their disadvantages.
"This difference cannot be possible," many will exclaim;
but, if such doubt my figuring, they will find their own to
agree substantially with these results, for arithmetic cannot
lie.
The principle here involved is also still further demonstrated by a calculation of the number of cubic feet contained in the two houses., Suppose each story of each house
to be 10 feet high. The square house contains 54 x 54 x 10
cubic feet in each story, equaling 29,160 x 2 = 58,320 in both,
or, deducting 10,800 for the entries, 47,520 within the rooms;
while the winged house has only 29,440 cubic feet in both
stories, less 6400 in the entries _ 23,040. Now, the difference in a lifetime between living in a house which contains
47,000 cubic feet of breathing timber, compared with one
which contains only 23,000, or less than half as much, is no
trifle. Give me air, and since we all spend one half of our
lives within doors, a ROOMY house is a very great desideratum.
But the square house can be carried up three stories
cheaper than the winged one can be built only two in the
centre and the wings one, and will then contain 87,480
71,000   5
minus 16,200 —a difference of 000 = 2'  orTWICE AND ONE
23,000 =    or TWICE AND ONE
HALF more cubic feet in the three-storied square house than
in the winged, which rarely is, and cannot well be, carried
up higher than just estimated, whereas the square of that
size LOOKS better three stories than less. All this, besides the
greater heat in summer in the winged house, while the square
one has a middle story neither damp nor hot, but admirable
for sleeping-rooms. And in this winged house you have no
wood-house, nor any place for any, without its darkening
some of your rooms and enhancing its unsightliness. Not so
with a square one.
Some will censure me for dwelling thus. I do so partly to
show what foolish antics moneyed simpletons will play, for




30              A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
no other earthly reason than to be fashionable, but mainly to
demonstrate some mathematical laws-as enduring as nature
-to be applied hereafter, as well as that the reader may
fully comprehend the BASES of these calculations, which will
render him CERTAIN that they are correct.
11. THE COTTAGE OR DORIC STYLE.
"Ah, this is the plan for a most beautiful and most perfect
house. How cunning, how pretty it does look!" is the general talk. Being all the rage, it must indeed be "a good
many touches above common." Let us see.
Every room joins the foundation or the roof. This is a
decided objection, as already seen.  And why this extra
steepness of roof?  Its admirers must certainly love to lay
and swelter in an attic room August nights better than I do,
or else they would not take so much pains to make so much
more roof than is necessary, and this so steep as to catch the
full power of the sun. And then, see how much more expensive such roofs are for the room sheltered, consequent on
their steepness, which greatly increases their cost, at the
same time that it actually injures the house.
And then why so many roofs, and corners in these roofs,
which are doibly expensive and far poorer, in every respect,
than if in two whole sheets? The raftering, boarding, shingling, uniting the eight sheets of roof at their catercornered
junctions, so as to prevent their leaking, the room thrown
away in the peaks, and the finified fixings around the roofs,
put on for ornament, yet violating every principle of. correct
taste, all condemn this style.
And here let me develop the law which governs this whole
subject of taste and beauty. Nature furnishes our only pattern of true ornament. All she makes is beautiful, but, mark,
she never puts on any thing exclusively for ornament AS
SUCH. She appends only what is useful, and even absolutely
NECESSARY, yet so appends it as that all necessary appendages
add to the beauty. Take the mouth, nose, ears, hands, feet,
etc., as examples, or the various parts of flowers, etc. Every
thing in nature is the perfection of beauty, yet is any single
USELESS ornament found throughout all her works? Suppose




THE COTTAGE OR DORIC STYLE.            31
the body lumbered up with a parcel of useless appendages,
however beautiful they might be where they were usefpl, yet
should we be any more handsome? Should not we be deformed thereby? How would a gold ring, however exquisitely carved, look in the nose or lips? How ugly would these
dangling ear-rings look, if custom did not reconcile us to their
use. Other fashionable toilet appendages might be cited as
still more ridiculous, simply because put on for ornament
where they are worse than useless. But the law of things,
that whatever appendage, however beautiful where it is useful, THEREFORE deforms, instead of adorns, where it is useless, is too plain to require additional illustration, and its application to these finified carvings and cornishings of the cottage
style too palpable to excite any thing but disgust in those of
correct tastes. For a child whose tastes are yet immature to
be tickled by them would not be surprising, but for the ELITE
to be enamored with them only shows how GREEN they are,
at least in architecture.
For the same reason that the form of a winged house is
objectionable, is the cottage shape proportionally so; for it consists in reality of an upright and two wings, excepting that
there are four sets of rafters, etc., with roofs bunglingly joined,
instead of three, as in the winged, and one in the square house.
The accompanying diagram will best illustrate this point-,
(see Fig. 6, on next page.)
The entry, E, must of course be in the middle of the upright part, and this leaves four little rooms scarcely better
than none-A, B, C, and D-and the balance of the rooms
miserably partitioned. Suppose the house were built out
square with the uprights, namely, with those dotted lines in
the figure, besides the net gain of the four figures, a, b, c, d,
the other four, A, B, C, D, joined with them, would make so
much larger rooms of A a, B b, C c, D d, without building an
inch more of outside wall, and with a saving of all those
CORNERS, SO wasteful of stuff, and so hindersome to the carpenter.
The same calculations which showed the loss consequent
on the winged structure, will apply both to the cottage and
the cross structure. Both are combinations of folly and extravagance, and destructive alike of beauty and utility.




32              A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
Fig. 6-The Cottam~e Style.
a  A                 1          3
E 
Another loss, not yet estimated, but consequent on the
winged, cottage, and cross structure, is in their CORNERS.
Reference is now had, not to the loss of time and materials
consequent on constructing a wall of a given length all full
of corners, compared with making a strait one of the same
length-that is, the saving occasioned by building a square
house with only four right-angles, compared with the loss of
materials and labor consequent on making TWELVE corners in
it, as in the cottage, cross, and winged styles-itself a very
great loss-and all without gaining any thing but a loss; —but
I refer to the loss INSIDE the rooms —not to the loss of ti'me
and material of making twelve INSIDE as well as outside cor



LOSS BY CORNERS.                   33
ners, but to the ROOM lost in the corners themselves. The
corners of rooms are of precious little use any way, because
Fig. 7-Loss occasioned by Corners.
N
they are dark, far from the fire, disparaging to furniture, and
rarely ever occupied. This is true of all corners, and of
course the loss is THREE TIMES as great in tile cottage, cross,
and winged styles, as in the square one, because they contain
three times as many corners, and these nearer together. And
this loss appertains to both stories. Let the above diagram
(Fig. 7) illustrate the principle here involved.
A house with these corners left out, as in those dotted lines,
would contain just about as much AVAILABLE or useful room
as with them. Now suppose, instead of losing four corners
in each story, you lose TWELVE, this loss amounts to considerable, in ADDITION to all those other losses already pointed
out. Away, then, with all three of these fancy styles. Those
who fancy or adopt them must be either weak or thoughtlessweak if they cannot perceive their inferiority in every respect,
and thoughtless if they can, but do not.
3




34              A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
The average results at which we have thus far arrived
are, then, that the square form costs less, in proportion, by
from one half to three fourths, than these other styles, besides
being so much more AVAILABLE. And then how little show
a $5000 cottage makes, compared with a $5000 square house.
But is the SQUARE form the best of all other forms?  It is
not, as will be seen by the following
6. COMPARISON OF THE SQUARE WITH THE OCTAGON.
For the reason already demonstrated, that the square house
contains more room, in proportion to its length of wall, than
these other forms, a circular one contains more than a square,
etc., the nearer we approach to the circle, as shown in Figs.
1, 2, 3, and 4. And since the PRINCIPLE here involved is the
grand basis of that architectural superstructure attempted to
be reared in this volume, the author may do well to elucidate
it fully, and the reader to comprehend it perfectly. To compare the square with the octagon, (Figs. 8, 9.)
Fig. 8 is four inches square.  Let it represent a house
thirty-two feet square, one inch representing eight feet. It is
128 feet in circumference, and encloses 1024 square feet.




COMPARISON OF THE SQUARE WITH THE OCTAGON.   35
Fig. 8-The Square.
Fig. 9 is an OCTAGON, with two-inch or sixteen-feet sides,
on the same scale, and having of course the same circumference, namely, 128 feet. But it contains 1218 square feet,
as seen by the following demonstration:
Square feet.
A, D, E, H, is 16 by 39, and contains  - - - - - -  624
B, C, K, N, is 11 by 16, and contains  - - - - - -  176
I, G, M, L, is also 11 by 16, and contains  - - - - -  176
The four half-squares, A N B, C D K, E I L, and G H M,
make two squares, each 11 feet  - - - -  -  -  242
Total number of square feet in the octagon  -    - -  1218




36              A NEW MODE OF BUILDING.
But the square of the same circumference contains only
1024 square feet. So that the octagon exceeds the square
by 194 square feet-a gain of ONE FIFTH.
Fig. 9-The Octagon Form.
/  t
I                              I
/              I                              I
I                              I
l                              I
i                              I,
To show this difference by reducing their respective numbers of square feet to fractions. Dropping eighteen square




COMPARISON OF THE SQUARE WITH THE OCTAGON.   37
feet from the octagon, and twenty-four from the square, the
sum stands:
12        6
1 0   2 =  5 - ONE FIFTH gain
in favor of the octagon. That is, an octagon of a given circumference contains more than a square of the same circumference by one hundred square feet in every five hundred
square feet. Now, since all that costs in a building is wall,
roof, foundation, ceiling, floors, doors, and windows-and
since a given length of octagon wall will enclose one fifth
more space than the same length of wall in a square shape,
of course you can have the same sized house for one fifth less
money, or a house one fifth larger for the same sum; for this
gain is just as great in the foundation, siding, plastering, painting, whitewashing, etc., as in the wall proper.  It appertains alike to materials, labor, and EVERY THING ABOUT THE
BUILDING. The doors and windows might be considered an
exception, yet they are not. Given sized windows will even
light a room more than a fifth larger in the octagon than in
the square —first, because the latter has deep, dark CORNERS,
which will be dark in a cloudy day however large your windows, which is not the case with the octagon; -and also because the octagon form makes the same gain in the DEPTH of
the rooms that it does in the length of the walls, that is, the
room is more COMPACT.
To put together two important results at which we have
thus arrived. We have seen that a square house of a given
circumrfference contains more than an oblong one of the same
circumference, and an octagon more than a square. Let us
compare them. Take a house 24 feet front by 40 deep. Its
circumference is, of course, 128 feet, the same as a 16 feet octagon, and a 32 feet square. But it contains only 960 square
feet. The difference between it and the octagon is one
fourth, as reducing the square feet of both to fractions will
show. Thus:
1218        152         19        4      1I
-  8 -          =  - + 5  - — 3960         120    8 15   5         -3  - 1'
equal to ONE THIRD more room in the octagon than in the




38         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
24-by-40 feet house, though the circumference of both are
exactly the same.
The FORM of our houses, then, is not so trifling a matter
after all. The practical difference between building a house
for $3000, or just as large and good a one for $2000, or in that
proportion, is considerable, especially to those laborers who
earn their money by bone and muscle.
But the difference between the octagon and the winged is
still greater. Suppose the upright of a winged house to be
20 by 15 feet, and the wings 10 by 15 feet each. Its circumference will then be 130-two feet more than the circumference of the sixteen feet octagon. The winged house will
contain only 20 X 15 + 15 X 10 + 15 X 10 = 600, which compares with the octagon as follows:
1218        152        25        12         2
00  8 =    =    2               6       1
600         75         126
or not ONE HALF
But suppose the upright to be two stories, while the wings
are only one, which is usually the case, while the octagon is
two stories, which it should be to look well, the winged will
contain only 900 square feet, while the octagon will contain
2436. Thus:
2436        203        29         2i
-     2 - * We - - 7 —'        1190012   75             11         1'
TWO AND A HALF times as much room in the octagon as in
the winged shape, though two feet more in circumference.
Now the difference between building a winged house for
$5000, or just as large an octagonal one for $2000, is something worth considering. All this TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY
PER CENT. SAVED, just by the octagonal FORM, over the winged!
Yet even all this saving, great as it is, is but a small part of
the advantages of the style of building which this book was
written to propound over others now in use, which we shall
see as we proceed.
One other advantage of the octagonal style over the square,
and especially over the cottage and winged styles, deserves
to be reckoned in this comparison, namely, their CORNERS.




COMPARISON OF THE SQUARE WITH THE OCTAGON.   39
We have already seen, in Fig. 7, that the corners of a square
room are of little account, because dark, useless for furniture,
and rarely occupied for any purpose.  In fact, an octagon,
drawn WITHIN the square, furnishes about as much AVAILABLE room as the square, yet contains only eighty feet to the
square's ninety-eight:
98        49         5          i
-0    2 =     10  4 = -,
0         40         4         1
all but two feet-a loss of TWENTY-FIVE PER CENT. in the
amount of wall in the square over and above the same amount
of AVAILABLE room in the octagon. But suppose, as in the
winged and cottage styles, there are twelve right angles,
instead of four, the loss is in the same proportion:
98        16
54 -  6 = 9  -almost 90 per cent.
Fig. 7 also enables us to show-what has doubtless puzzled some readers-wHY this gain by the octagon over the
square.  It consists in the fact that it requires more wall
to enclose the corners, in proportion to the number of square
feet which they contain, than the house as a whole. Thus,
those eight lines which form the four right angles of the four
half squares in the corners of the square, which are omitted
by the dotted lines of the octagon, are seven feet per side, making together fifty-six feet.  Ye~t they enclose only two
seven-feet squares, or ninety-eight square feet, or four feet
wall to seven square feet enclosed. That is, a foot of corner
wall encloses less than two square feet, whereas the octagon
has only eighty feet wall to its four hundred and seventy-eight
square feet, which is:
478        48         6
80    10=   8
or six square feet for every foot of wall; whereas the- four
corners omitted by the dotted lines contain only two square
feet for every foot of wall. That is, the octagon encloses six
square feet to every foot of wall, while the triangles, or corners of square rooms, enclose only two square feet to every




40         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
foot of wall —- difference of three to one, which is lost in the
corners of the square over the octagon as a whole.
The gain in twelve, sixteen, and twenty-sided figures over
even the octagon, is greater and still greater in proportion as
the figure approaches the circle. Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4.
13. THE COMPARATIVE BEAUTY OF THE DORIC, SQUARE, AND OCTAGON FORMS.
The BEAUTY of a house is scarcely less important than its
room. True, a homely but CONVENIENT house is better than
a beautiful but incommodious one, yet beauty and utility are
by no means incompatible with each other. Indeed, they are
as closely united in art as in nature; that is, they are INSEPARABLE. It is hardly possible to have a truly handsome house
without its being capable of being made as handy inside as it
is beautiful outside; nor can a homely-looking house well be
made convenient. I repeat, beauty and utility are as closely
united in architecture as they are throughout all nature. If,
therefore, the square or winged form of house is the best, it
will LOOK best, and if it is the most beautiful, it can be made
the most comfortable.
FORM imbodies an important element of beauty. Yet some
forms are constitutionally more beautiful than others. Of
these the spherical is.more beautiful than the angular, and the
smooth and undulating than the rough and projecting. WHY
is it that a poor animal, or a lean person, is more homely than
the same animal or person when fleshy? Beceuse the latter
are less angular and more spherical than the former. Why
do we behold flat, smooth stones with more pleasure than
those which are rough and irregular, but because there are
less ANGLES in the former than the latter? Why are apples,
peaches, etc., more beautiful than chestnut burs? This principle answers, excepting what beauty is imparted by color.
And the more acute the angle, the less beautiful; but the
more the angle approaches to the circle, the more beautiful.
Hence a square house is more beautiful than a triangular one,
and an octagon or duodecagon than either. Of course, then,
the far greater number of right angles in the winged and
cross styles than in the octagonal, and the high peaks of




BOARD WALLS IN PLACE OF FRAMES.           41
the roofs of the doric, prove them to be less handsome than
a square house, and doubly less than the octagon. For one,
I cannot consider cottages or wings handsome.  They always strike me as unsightly, and well-nigh deformed. And
the basis of this sentence is an immutable law of nature.
Look at a dome, and then at a cottage roof, full of sharp
peaks, sticking out in various directions, and say if the undulating regularity of the former does not strike the eye far
more agreeably than the sharp projections of the latter. This
is not one of those fancy matters which allow of diversity
of opinion, but is a fixed ordinance of nature, and passes no
enviable sentence on the tastes of those who claim to possess
as great a preponderance of good taste as of property, and
likewise of other prerogatives. And fact sustains this theory,
as all will say who compare Figures 5, 6, 8, and 20, with
each other.
Since, then, the octagon form is more beautiful as well as
capacious, and more consonant with the predominant or governing form of nature —the spherical-it deserves consideration.
"But," some will ask, " how happens it that our author is
so very much smarter than all the world besides? Why has
not this plan, if really so superior, been seen and put in practice long ago, especially since men are racking their inventions in search of building improvements?" Because of the
greater ease of FRAMING the right angle than any other; and
unless this difficulty can be overcome, it will be cheaper, after
all, to build on the square than on the octagonal plan. This
difficulty we propose to obviate by building
14. BOARD WALLS IN PLACE OF FRAMES.
Let the boards be sawed three, four, or six inches wide,
and one inch thick-though probably two inches thick would
answer every purpose-and nail them down, one upon another, taking pains to set one board half an inch out, and the
other half an inch in, so that the plaster will adhere to them,
and thus save the LATHING.
A slight variation of this plan consists in sawing half the




42         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
boards of a given width, say six inches, and the other half an
inch wider, or else narrower, and then nailing down first a
wide and then a narrow one, which also hold the mortar
equally well, and both hold it better than lath.
The floor timbers and rafters rest on this board wall,
and this obviates all necessity for frames, besides rendering
houses far more SOLID than the best of frames could make
them. The corners are perfectly immovable, and the whole
structure is firm and powerful. This is no fancy theory, but
an EXPERIMENTAL REALITY. I HAVE TRIED IT, and write this
work in a house thus constructed. And though its height is
unusual for its ground dimensions, it being twenty-seven feet
square and thirty high, yet 1 never occupied any house which
resists heavy winds as effectually as this. The carpenteran old framer-who sawed off the shingles at the top of the
roof, expressed astonishment at its solidity, and added that he
never sawed off the peak shingles of a house before which did
not shake, whereas this did not tremble.  The carpenter,
however, committed one important error in laying one wall
on the ground, while the other sides were laid on stone, and,
as this board wall started below the level of the ground, and
the eaves were allowed to keep it wet for a couple of years,
one corner has sunk some, so that the floors tremble a little, yet it withstands our heaviest blows, although in a very
bleak place, better than the best of framed houses.
My WIFE, who took some interest in my board-wall experiment, suggested that the PARTITIONS also should be carried
up in the same way-an admirable improvement, and one
that would render the whole perfectly solid, and allow the use
of shorter floor timbers, because they can rest on any or all
the ROOM walls, as well as on the outside ones. This would
also anchor every part of the house so effectually, that there
could be no more give to any part than stretch to a pile of
boards. And the more sides and angles the more solid.
To be a little more specific. I advise that the boards be
sawed four inches instead of six, because they seem to me to
give even then a great surplus of strength, and, instead of laying one narrow one and the next a wide one, or lapping them
a half inch, as stated above, I propose to use what we call
scantling for half the wall; that is, instead of squaring the




COMPARISON OF DORIC, SQUARE, AND OCTAGON FORMS. 43
logs by taking off four large slabs, I propose to saw the
WHOLE- slabs and all-as in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10-Best Mode of Sawing.
Then, when you come to turn the log, to saw the boards
three or four inches wide, whichever you like, saw through
slabs and all. Of course some of them will be two, others
three inches, and have irregular beveling edges; but what of
that? Let every second board be of equal width and straightedged, and the intermediate ones can be these scantling slabs,
This will leave openings enough to hold the mortar, which
will fill up all irregularities. I saw houses built on this plan
like lattice-work, that is, every second board was omitted,
with a row of blocks wherever they were nailed, leaving the
plaster to fill up the interstices.  But in this case, girths
should be laid on for the floor timbers to rest upon, because the boards would spring, except on these blocks. Yet
with such girths this plan is probably as good as the other,
and saves half the boards, yet, of course, takes the more
mortar.
The east and west sides of my house are built of four-inch
boards, one inch thick, and set one out and the next in, etc.,
half an inch each, and the north and south sides are made of
four-inch and six-inch boards laid alternately. I see no difference in their utility or strength.
" But what a sight of nails this plan requires," exclaims onec
Not so many after all. I used only about twelve hundred
pounds in my whole house, which, at $5 per hundred pounds,
cost only $60, or perhaps $40 extra on account of board
walls. But I decidedly prefer PINS, made as long as you can
well bore-say twelve to eighteen inches, according to the
length of your auger-worm-by selecting free splitting logs,
sawing them off the right'length, and laying them off on one




44        SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
end, riving, and taking down the corners, except at the head,
and then splitting the point and inserting a narrow wedge,
when driven till it reaches the bottom of its hole, this wedge
is driven uP, so that BOTH ENDS of the pin are PERFECTLY
SOLID. The power of such a pin is immense, particularly at
the corners, and allows not the slightest give. Pins in the
middle of the board will also do good execution, except between windows and doors, where the distance will generally be
too short to require them; in which case they should be pinned
slanting into window frames made of timbers four inches one
way, or as wide as your wall, their depth being immaterial.
The length of these boards should bear some relation to
that of the sides of your house. If it should be thirty feet,
let there be two lengths of fifteen feet boards, or half fourteen
and half sixteen, so as to break joints; or else let those scantling slabs already described, some of which will be shorter as
well as narrower-as seen in Fig. 10-break joints. If any
of your boards should be too long, let them project beyond
the corners till the whole is completed, when they can be
sawed off all together, which will be better than to take up
and lay down your saw to fit every board as you go, they
being laid up straight at the CORNERS. If any should be too
short, let plaster fill up instead. A single nail in each end of
every board will hold it till fastened by pins-yet probably their mere weight will be all sufficient. These pins
should be lapped one or two boards; that is, if twelve inches,
they should be inserted every ten or eleven inches of your
rise. Eight pins will, therefore, carry up a house thirty
feet square, or a sixteen feet octagon ten inches, and twenty
times eight, or one hundred and sixty —say two hundred on
account of doors and windows-will carry up the outside
walls twenty feet, which is about the average of two and a
half story houses. The inside walls might require as many
more, all of which a smart hand could make in two days.
A log which will square two feet, will make five hundred and
seventy-six inch pins, besides its slabs, enough for a commonsized house. The floor timbers should also be pinned to the
board walls, and perhaps allowed to lap a few inches, and
pinned where they meet on the inside walls, for the sake of
rendering assurance doubly sure; yet of what use extra labor




COMPARATIVE COST OF BOARD WALLS.          45
when the edifice is rendered perfectly solid by previous pinning? And what is there to move these boards or timbers?
A hurricane could not start pin or board, without lifting the
whole house.
The octagon shape would still further strengthen the structure, first, because no wind could strike full upon over one-eighth
of,the surface of the house, whereas some winds strike onefourth of a square house broadside; and because every corner
becomes a solid brace, of which there are eight in the octagon
to four in the square.
Now these boards can be laid up at any angle you please,
so as to render your house triangular, or square, or octagonal,
or whatever shape you like, and thus of the inside as well as
outside walls. The opportunity thus afforded for diversifying
the shape is surely a very great recommendation, alike serviceable to both fancy and utility. See how many shapes it
allows you to give your house and your rooms, and each
room a different form, if you like, without any perceptible
increase of cost.
15. THE COMPARATIVE COST OF BOARD WALLS.
"But what a raft of timber it must take!" exclaims another.
Let us see. Let your house be a square, thirty-two by thirtytwo, or a sixteen feet octagon, and a two-inch board thirty-two
feet long and one foot wide will make THREE boards four inches
by thirty-two feet, and of course carry up one fourth of your
house six inches; and four such boards, or 32 X 4 = 128 feet
surface measure, will carry up your entire outside wall six
inches, and two hundred and fifty feet will build it one foot
all around, and 20 X 256 = 5120, will build the entire outside
wall of a house thirty-two by thirty-two, twenty feet high!
And suppose your inside partitions are one half as long as
your outside walls —which is a fair allowance, yet the proportion increases with the smallness of your rooms-it will
require only seven thousand six hundred and eighty feet of
two inch boards to build your house! The floor timbers and
rafters are of course excepted, as these are alike in both
cases.
Or if your boards are only three inches wide instead of




46         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
four, it will take one fourth less, or only five thousand seven
hundred and sixty! And half of these scantling SLABS! And
since knotty hemlock or whitewood-any thing which will hold
a nail or pin-will answer every purpose, they need not cost
over four to eight dollars per thousand-varying with the locality-at the most, and can generally be procured just for
the drawing of the logs and sawing; because this kind of
timber, being hard to split, is peeled in great abundance all
over the country for tan-bark, and the logs left to rot, so that
they can be had for little or nothing. Your timber, then, will
not cost you over from twenty to fifty dollars for your whole
house, floor timbers, rafters, and all, for you can select sound
and good logs enough to make the latter.
If you build in the LATTICE style, only HALF as many boards,
or from three to four thousand feet, only will be required.
This will surprise you, but make your own calculations, and
if you come to any other conclusions it will be because you
figui'e wrong.
Mark, moreover, that every scrap of board can be woven
in, and neither knots nor shakes make any difference, for all
count the same, and the plaster hides them, and stops all
decay.
Mark, again, that even all those slab-scantlings already
described in Fig. 10, work in and make wall as fast as if clear
stuff and full width; whlereas these slabs are generally thrown
away, or else used for fire-wood. Indeed, the entire wall
might be built of the slabs made in sawing ordinary timber,
provided they were sawn, as already directed, along with
the log they come off from. Does not a plan which turns
these slabs, now wasted, to as good an account as good boards,
deserve consideration? Jt will save hundreds of millions of
money to our country, and many of you will live to see it,
and I trust help save it.
Moreover, these boards can be made of any kind of sound
timber. My house is made of hemlock, but I see not why
oak, maple, and even poplar and willow will not answer every
purpose, because the strain on it is trifling, and the mortar
will prevent its decaying. I first plastered the outside of my
house with a single rough or scratch coat, and after it had
remained thus for a year or so, built an addition, and in saw



COMPARATIVE COST OF BOARD WALLS.         47
ing through this board wall, for a door to connect the addition
with the upright, I found it perfectly dry and hard. I never
saw hemlock as hard, and the nails stuck so fast as to give us
much trouble to start them, even though these boards had
been exposed to the weather a year and a half after sawing
before building, and a year after building before siding. Till
then I feared the dry rot, but this experiment showed how
effectually the mortar prevented all decay.
The outside of your house can be plastered-it is already
LATHED-and then sided; or a plaster covering can be made
to adhere to these boards probably quite as well as to brick
or lath, and if any kind of plaster or cement can be made to
stand the weather, it can, of course, be substituted for siding,
and save painting. Yet to side on this kind of wall costs
no more than on studs, and the expense of sheeting, so common in New England -quite an item-exceeds the plastering.
Now this plan will redeem from utter waste this vast
amount of lumber, and convert it into comfortable dwellings.
And I leave it to benevolent readers to say whether bringing this plan forward is not accomplishing a great PUBLIC
GOOD by CHEAPENING AND BETTERING HOUSES.  Houses are
very costly, so that the poor cannot buy, and are obliged to
pay a most exorbitant rent. Now this plan will convert this
vast amount of waste timber into comfortable houses at a
trifling cost, and thus make houses plenty, and rents low-decidedly the greatest of public benefactions, except cheapening
food.
" But it must take a good deal of LABOR to put up such a
house; it is no fool of a job," some will still further object.
How so. He is rather soft, though no carpenter, who cannot
put one board above another, and pin them together, and put
up a good many of them in a day. Remember, every six
boards carries up your wall a foot, the length of your boards;
and every forty-eight boards, sixteen feet long, raises your
whole wall one foot! Now, any tolerably-ingenious man can
lay and pin two or three hundred boards-provided they are
previously sawed of the right length-per day; which would
lay his whole wall in from three to five days! and half as
many more will put up the partitions. Make your own figures
if you doubt mine. You will hardly believe this possible,




48         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
though you see that it is all just so; but experiment settles
the question. Ten days work of a carpenter, with a little
help from myself, brother, and father, who worked leisurely
now and then, put up my house, though over half of this time
was spent in splicing floor timbers, making rafters out of
boards, and other similar things, which had no reference to
the putting up of the wall, and although we measured, sawed
off, fitted, and laid every board singly as we went-whereas
the whole should have been sawed beforehand, or else the
logs made of the several lengths required at the mill. We
were also all unacquainted with it; whereas this book will
show men how to put up twice as fast as we did. Believe
me, when I say that lumber, pins, labor, and nails, to put up
the outside and inside walls-both of which must go up together-of a house thirty-two feet square, or of this dimension, whatever be its shape, will not cost you eighty dollars!
Now ask any carpenter what he will do the same job for in
the old way, and he will tell you some $200! My carpenter
said he would not have put up the bare frame of my house for
less than $120; whereas mine cost me only about $80, notwithstanding all my disadvantages. And, mark, it WAS ALL
READY FOR RECEIVING THE PLASTER.
The cost of the inside partitions, made of boards, will be
in the same proportion, and vary with the number and size of
your rooms. But suppose they equal the outside walls —and
this is by no means likely-your house, all ready for shingling
and plastering, except overhead-indeed, throughout-will be
LESS THAN $100!!!subject to variations consequent on the
cost of lumber, number and arrangement of rooms, and other
little contingencies. Yet, since the gross cost is only about
$75, these variations will make no appreciable difference.
Some of the rafters and floor timbers of both my house and
barn were made by nailing these six-inch wall boards together, and placing them edgewise. By this means, and breaking
joints, either can be made any length-say hundreds of feet,
if desired. Yet, there is no use in sawing timber apart and
then pinning it together again, unless to make up a wanting
timber or two, or to make them of a length greater than they
can be got sawed-a matter worth mentioning, yet no way
peculiar to this style of building.




THE QUALITY OF BOARD WALLS.            49
Now foot up the cost of this frame and wall, in accordance
with the price of materials and labor in your various sections
of country, and compare it with the cost of the mere frame of
a house of the same shape and dimensions-remembering that
our estimate is for a house two and a half stories high-and
then choose the new, cheaper, and better style, or the old,
costly, and poorer way.
16. THE QUALITY OF THIS BOARD WALL.
Is it as GOOD as the old kind? Far better, every way.
Let us examine its advantages. Air rushes in freely through
the open crevices of the siding, and, of course, through every
crack in the plastering and flooring, and therefore troubles
you to keep warm in cold weather, even with considerable
fire; and especially your feet, in consequence of the air coming up through the floors. This the board wall prevents. It
can and should be plastered outside and in; which, of course,
excludes the air from getting access under the floor, or to the
inner coat of plastering, leaving only windows and doors for
its ingress. Now, a WARM house is quite a desideratum, both
as saving fuel-quite an expensive thing-and as promotive
of comfort. A house built in this way not only retains the
heat, but preserves an EVEN temperature, and thus escapes
the one-minute-warm-and-the-next-cold, incident to the old
plan.
A fact in regard to my ownf house. The woman who occupied it in the winter of 1844-5, says, that she: had water
standing all winter in one of the rooms, in which there was
no fire, nor any below it, and yet that but once all winter did
that water freeze; and I will prove practically, to all who
will give me an opportunity, that the house is thus easily made
and kept warm. I speak not of doors and windows, which
are the same in the new as old style, but of floors and walls.
I would not, on any account, exchange my walls even for
brick or filled-in walls; because the former retain moisture,
which these never do; and the latter allow more or less air
to pass in around the siding and next the plastering, whereas
these shut up every possible avenue against its entrance, from
top to bottom, with DOUBLE DOORS. All cracks in lath and plas4




50         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
tering, the wind finds and pours through; but if a crack occurs in my inside wall-and I have none, except such as are
caused by that settling already alluded to, and the carpenter
should have known better than to have begun a wall on the
bare ground-no wind can get TO it, and therefore none
through it; for it cannot press against the inside coat of plaster the whole length and breadth of wall, as by the old method, nor come in around the wash-boards, for it cannot get TO
them, but must STAY OUT. I consider my house worth much
more, just on this account, than if built in the old way.
You see, then, how and why it is that this kind of wall is
not half as costly as the present kinds, and ypt is twice or
thrice as good, in EVERY respect.
This plan also allows you to build your floors of hemlock.
That timber is not used for this purpose, because it cannot be
grooved and matched,'which is necessary in order to keep
the WIND out. But by the proposed method, no wind can get
access UNDER the floor, and of course no grooves and joints
are necessary to keep it from  coming up through it.  And
yet this method will render your floors far warmer than all
the matching, aided by all the lining you can put on. Then
see how cheap your hemlock floors, every way as good; for,
carpeted, they are never seen.  The lumber will cost you.
only six to ten dollars per thousand feet, instead of twenty to
twenty-five dollars, and they can be put down in far less time.
Hence, since your thirty-two feet square house contains but
1046 square feet, your flooring, for the three floors, will cost
only some thirty dollars, instead of seventy-five dollars, and
can be put down for five dollars, instead of fifteen-in all,
forty dollars instead of one hundred dollars: or you can
even put them down yourself. Nails the same in both cases.
17. VERMIN EXCLUDED FROM BOARD WALLS.
Moreover, the old method allows rats and mice free range
throughout the house, and furnishes a complete harbor for
them. But this board plan shuts them out effectually. They
cannot, as by the old plan, climb up and harbor between siding
and plastering, nor get up between the ceiling and floors; for
all is solid board. encased in mortar. They can be effectually




ADVANTAGES OF BOARD WALLS.            51
prevented from entering, while building, in five minutes, by
just making one single place around your chimney mousetight. But when I come to speak of chimneys, I will show
how to stop them out wholly, fiom cellar to garret. You
will, at least, see how effectually this board wall plan excludes
these exceedingly annoying and destructive customers from
all parts of the house, by filling up all access and all harbors;
and is not this worth $1000? Many would give twice as
much to be rid of these torments.
To one feature of this new plan I beg special attention —to
its very great superiority, not in one or two trifling respects,
but in EVERY respect. Any one of these advantages is amply
sufficient to secure its universal adoption, and all combined
render it incomparably better than any other-it having the
advantages of all, no disadvantages, and many excellencies
unknown to all others. In short, it is NATURE'S style of architecture. And its allowing the eight or twelve-sided plan already shown to gain one-fifth by its FORM alone, caps the climax of its value.
We have, as yet, only just alluded to the lathing. They
cost from $1,50 to $2,50 per hundred, according to locality
and fluctuations in price-say two d9Olars all around New
York-and a hundred will lay about fifty square feet; so that
your outside walls will take about five hundred, which will
cost ten dollars, besides nails and putting them on. And all
your INSIDE walls, built in the old way, must be lathed on BOTH
SIDES; which, estimating them at half the length of the outside walls, will cost ten dollars more; and about ten dollars
more for nails, and putting on-the WHOLE of which this board
plan saves. All the lathing required about the whole house is
just overhead, which is the same as by the old plan, except
that the wind cannot get TO, nor, of course, through the ceiling, by this method, but can through that. Many other advantages this board wall possesses over all others.  The
windows, doors, and wash-boards, and some other kindred
matters, will cost the same by this method as by the old; and
the masonry the same, excepting a little more mortar, and
also labor, in case you plaster the outside, which I decidedly
recommend, even if you side it. Yet four days' work will,ut on a rough outside coat on your thirty-two feet house



52         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
at least, it did on mine, though a quarter higher-the first
extra cost we have yet found incident to this method, and this
is trifling, and not necessary unless to make your wall far
better than by the old plan.
18. BOARD WALLS FOR THE BASEMENT STORY.
This board wall plan, as it will keep out cold and frost, can
be used in the cellar wall in place of stone-except enough
for the house to rest upon-and be much cheaper and better,
especially on account of rats and mice. I do not believe in
these deep, dark, damp pits for cellars, perhaps half full of
water, to dig and wall which costs so extravagantly. The
foundation of the winged house already drawn, Fig. 5, cost
over five hundred dollars. But to dig down, say two feet,
will not cost much, as the top of the ground digs easily,
and can even be ploughed and scraped to that depth; bank
up a foot or two with the dirt thrown out; make a stone wall
three feet high, so as to keep your boards off the ground, and
build the balance, partitions and all, of boards; and then light
and air it amply, so that you will not feel, any time you want
an apple or a potato, that you are going into a damp, dreary
dungeon —or be obliged to take a light-or have your first
story rendered damp and unhealthy by your cellar. Double
windows-one hung so as to swing outside, and the other inmay be necessary, so that the dead air between them may
arrest frost; or, possibly, a double board wall may be requisite-though probably not; yet both of these will cost less
than ordinary cellars; and then see how much more pleasant
and convenient, and every way better. But more on cellars
hereafter.
This board wall plan, then, allows us, without any extra
expense, and with far greater strength, to secure our octagon
form. It remains to see whether this octagon form can be
partitioned off into rooms as advantageously as the square.
FAR MORE.




AR.RANGEMENT OF ROOMS IN THE, OCTAGON.        53
19. INSIDE PLANS OF THE OCTAGON STYLE.
It enables us to dispense with the ENTRY almost altogether,
and thus to save one fifth of our room, and thereby to escape
Fig. 11. Tlie Octa.gon Clsernent.
/ 
_ TORA GE                            L U MB E R
DD
| D.               ENTR Y
A A U CLTCHEjV
WAS g  Z IT. 
this great thoroughfare for winter air, as well las this separator
of the main rooms of a house. Entries are of very little use,




54         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
waste about a sixth of the entire house, are right in the way,
and are perfect nuisances in many respects.
"But must we enter directly into our best rooms?  How
can we do without them?"  I will show you. Your house requires a thoroughfare, that is, an entry, so that you can pass
through it.  But WHERE shall this thoroughfare be?  Not
through your main story, for this will bring in the most dirt
where it is most troublesome, namely, near your nicest rooms,
but through that light, airy basement already described.
You require this entry quite as much for going to and from
your cellar story with barrels, garden sauce, wood, etc., as
for the special accommodation of your parlors. At all events,
I think this great thoroughfare should be through the cellar
story, a plan for which is seen in Fig. 9.
One great advantage of this plan is, that it allows us to have
the basement story mostly above ground, which enables us to
convert the WHOLE of the room enclosed by the foundation to
some good use, instead of, as by the old plan, wasting all but
a twenty-feet square hole, which is less than a third of the
1218 square feet, enclosed by a sixteen-feet octagon. See to
what an excellent use the accompanying ground-plan converts
the entire octagon basement. A wash-kitchen for the rough
work of the family is much needed in every house. This
great convenience our plan furnishes. It is' also even with
the ground, and, of course, handy for wood and water, and
away from your nice rooms; it is, in short, just where it
should be.
A MILK ROOM
Is another great desideratum. This should be below stairs,
yet be light and airy; and our plan gives just the one wanted, and just WHERE it is most convenient, namely, near your
basement kitchen. The milk can also be taken in and out
through the cellar entry, and thus save steps, and be wholly
by itself.
A FURNACE
Is by far a better plan for warming a house than separate
fire-places, or grates, or stoves, for each room. It is much
more effectual, and every way more convenient, less expensive, and easily tended. Then, the making of one fire per




BASEMENT WOOD-nIOUSE.              55
day serves for the whole house, and saves time, kindlings, and
much expense and trouble, besides the great saving of fuel.
For this convenience our plan provides, and its location is
central, so that it can easily heat any or all the upper rooms.
A WOOD-HOUSE
Is an appendage indispensable to a comfortable house. Nor
should it be away off at the extreme end of a long row of
buildings, but it should be CENTRAL. Now one quarter of this
cellar story is just the place for it, and saves the ENTIRE expense of foundation, roof, timber, siding, and all, yet provides
an admirable one, and in a CENTRAL location, close to the furnace, and to that central staircase which connects it with the
whole house. When you want wood, therefore, you are not
obliged to go through hall and kitchen, away out of doors,
perhaps through snow and rain, but you can go firom any
part of the house directly to it, as if you were going from one
room in the house to another. This room is also large enough
to hold even more than a full storage of wood, and will fur.
nish an admirable place for tools, etc. The wood can be cut
outside, and thrown in through the window, W. Mark, you
have this superb wood-house WITHOUT ANY EXPENSE, for you
build it WHILE LAYING THE FOUNDATION of your house; whereas the mere expense of roof for one is considerable.
A LARGE LUMBER ROOM
Is also provided for by this plan. Every house should have
such a room, to take the place of garrets, only more accessible
and convenient, for waste lumber and seasoned timber —for,
perhaps, a work-bench-a very handy affair about a house.
Our plan provides just the place required.
Two large lighted sauce-cellars, in addition to all these
other conveniences, are provided for by this plan, which are,
of course, indispensable, and one of which is connected with
the basement kitchen. But see how easy of access all these
rooms are, and how light and pleasant, instead of damp and
dark. And the arrangement of the stairs is such as to render every room in this basement perfectly accessible. You
do not have to go through several to get to one, but go from




56          SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
the centre to any one of them, and from this centre up to any
required room above.
The aggregate number of square feet already shown to be
contained in a sixteen-feet octagon, is 1218, or 136 square
yards. Of this, the entry, six or eight by thirty-nine, occupies 234 to 312;* the sub-kitchen contains about 184 square
feet, or twenty square yards, equal to a room twelve by fifteen, but can easily be made larger, and can have two windows, by having the partition on the other side of the window-though this would render one sauce-cellar dark and
small, yet, perhaps, all the better-while the milk room can
be made of any size you like. Or, the milk and wood rooms
can be made to change places. There is space enough to
render these rooms sufficiently large for all practical purposes, and you can vary their relative size and location at
pleasure —no small recommendation of this plan. How incomparably superior, in every respect, this basement to our
present pit-hole cellars, with all the rest of the foundationroom thrown away, besides the expense of wood-house, which
is no trifle!
But let us ascend by these stairs-the foot of which should
be toward the sub-kitchen-to the principal story of the
house, and see how we can arrange its rooms.
* In these and subsequent as well as preceding estimates, no allowance is made
for the room occupied by WALL, which, being only four or five inches thick. is
trifling, so that we come near enough for all practical purposes.




ARRANGEMENT OF ROOMS.                5'
Fi.  IH.
c    D                                 fDX.D  C
F-.. /
D                                      12 x 20=
x~~~~~~~W




58         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
This diagram, drawn on the same scale-sixteen feet per
inch-gives four fine large rooms, of the following dimensions:
A Parlor, P, 18X 19=           342 sq. ft. = 38 sq. yds.
Sitting-room, 18X19=          342  "   = 38   "
Back Parlor, 12X 16 --         192  "   -21   "
Dining-room, 12X 20 =         240  "   - 26   "
Closets included in rooms.
Total net room on first floor,  1116* "  - 123   "
tr"    "    second  "      1146  "
"      "    third    "     1146
Basement, 1218 - 420 for
entry and fire-place, -     798  "
Attic, 1218 - 18 stairway, =  1200  "
Total net room,              5406  "
To compare this sixteen-feet octagon with a large house
having a kitchen in the rear, and a wood-house still further
back, which is the usual style of large double houses. Slight
deviations from this partitioning off of rooms is allowed by
this plan, but this is the generic type of nearly all such houses.
Their sizes vary, yet this will not materially affect our general
results.
Let this large and splendid mansion be three stories, forty
by forty-two, with a rear kitchen, eighteen by twenty-six, as
represented in Fig. 13, made on the same scale of eight feet
to the inch.
Its total circumference is 216, exactly the same with the
winged house drawn in Fig. 5. Its entire contents is 42>X40
+26X18=2148 on the first floor, kitchen included. From
this deduct its entries, 10X42+ R, e, 10X4=460, and 120
for five stacks of chimneys, 3X8=24X5 -120, and you have
only 1568 square feet within the rooms.
I Add 112 for the entry and stairs - 1228, which shows our estimates to be
lorrect, excepting ten square feet.




Fig 13.'1Q
I-              T  r!
l   l W' —   ID,   TV,;    1  X=~-    I 
1'r i
_               I
I
ji'I
I!i
I         D                          I''
H  /
IW
Ir
w~                                                    w
~~~~~S ~ ~ ~   1               I!
I
j___.....!o~~~~~~~~ZY K~
~~~~~








COMPARISON OF THE SQUARE WITH THE OCTAGON.   59
On the first floor, of net room,  -        -  1568
" second "  "  -                            1568
" third    "      "  1680-entry, 400, and
chimney, 120,=-  --   - - - - - -1160
Cellar, 20 X 20 =                              400
4696
Garret story, - - -                           1568
6264
This magnificent mansion, then, exceeds the small sixteenfeet octagon, in net available room, only 858 square feet, or
ONE NINTH.  Or, to show this result by reducing the fractions6264       522       52        10
12 — 10-+ 5 
5406       450       45         9 
equal to one ninth difference. That is, the large mansion
and the small octagon are to each other as tenht to nine.
Yet the mansion will cost more than four octagons; nor will
the former bear any comparison with the latter in point of
convenience; of which anon.
20. COMPARISON OF THIS MANSION WITH A TWENTY-SEVEN FEET
OCTAGON.
Let us next compare the net room in this massive double
house with that in an octagon of the same circumference,
namely, 216 -8=27 feet; the dimensions of which are given
in the diagram on page 61, drawn on a scale of twelve
feet to the inch. The outer line is its portico,,which is nine
feet wide.
This octagon is sixty-four feet through. Square this, 64X
64=4096; from which take the four half squares at the four
corners (one of which is illustrated by dotted lines), which
equal two squares twenty feet each =20X20X2=800; and
you have 4096 -800 = 3296 square feet within the octagon.
From this deduct 200 square feet for entries and stairway,
and you have 3096 net room.




60         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
Net room on the first floor, -               - 3096
"6       second  "                     - - 3096
"6 third " -                               3096
6"  in the garret, 3296-4X8=32-  - - 3264
"      "  basement, deduct entry and furnace, -                     - - - -2600
Total net room in the three stories, garret, and
basement,   -    - - - - - - - - - 15,152
Reducing the net room in both houses by fractions, they
stand thus:
15,152        1263       158       79        235
6264         522         65        32         1
That is, the octagon contains TWICE AND ALMOST A HALF as
much net room as the splendid mansion of the same outside
wall, saving that the kitchen' is only two stories. True, we
reckon more of the basement of the octagon, relatively, than
of the mansion, because the whole of the former will be turned
to an excellent practical account; yet we have reckoned as
much of the cellar story of our first houses as is generally
used. Nor have we deducted any thing on account of those
useless corners between the chimneys and walls.
Besides, see what a mignificent dome we have in our octagon, compared with the garrets of the mansion. But the
octagon exceeds the mansion no less in its size, than in12. THE SUPERB ARRANGEMENT OF ITS ROOMS.
But the size and CONVENIENCE OF ITS ROOMS are a still greater advantage.
(F) front (D) door; (W) window; (c) closet; (B) bedroom; (Par.) parlor; (Pan.) pantry; (D P) dark pantry; (Sit.)
sitting-room, etc. The outside line is the portico. I do not
sav that this inside arrangement of rooms is the best that can
be devised, but I do say that it incomparably exceeds any
arrangement of rooms of which the square house admits.
Besides the charm of novelty-of differing from all kinds of
rooms now in use-it will combine an amount of advantamre




Fig. 14.'PA MTr.
Di<:c |D          1                ID         D   D
I(                         -                              DIA7AC. AI
PASR.                             Da        D |IN/W g. 
\IT. X       D                      - - -  K —i-TD E-V 
W                     I...,
iF, P.                                ]      ~_?_.~.~~~
w                    _   _ _   _








ARRANGEMENT OF ROOMS.               61
found in no house extant. To examine them more particularly:
The Parlor is 19X27-100 sq. ft. =513 sq. ft=57 sq. yds.
Library (L),          ~ 12X 13-156 "  -=21'"   "
Bed-room (B) off library,  13 X 13= 169" "- 19 "  "
Sitting-room (same as parlor),   513 " — 57 "  "
Bed-room,               12X15-186 " "-21 "  "
Winter sitting-room,    18 X 24432 " "-48 "  o
Triangular bath-room,             72 " "-  8"  "
Kitchen (K) and closets,  13X36 =468" "  52"  "
Dining-room and closets,
19X36-100-584"  "-65 "  "
Pantry and dark pantry,          138" "  12" "
3231      360
Now I submit to any practical housekeeper whether the
arrangement of the rooms in this house is not two and a half
times BETTER, as well as larger, than that of the splendid
mansion, forty by forty-two, as regards every story, from
basement to attic. Instead of being separated, all the rooms
are UNITED, SO that you can go from one to another without
being obliged to pass through a cold and cheerless entry.
And you go to and from the same point to go up as down;
and that point is the CENTRE, which makes the distance much
shorter. Nor, from whatever part of whichever room you
may start, have you to make any angle in going to and from
this stairway; whereas, in the square house, you must go a
long and circuitous route, as seen in those dotted lines. Now
the difference, especially to a weakly woman, between going
from room to room by a few direct steps, and by those long
and crooked roads, as illustrated by those tracks or dotted
lines in the two houses, is very great-MORE THAN DOUBLEin the square, compared with the octagon house.  I submit this point to the special consideration of every housekeeper, and leave them to say whether they could not do
TWICE THE WORK with the same ease in the octagon. To draw
* Fractions of yards, and of fractions, are sometimes omitted; and sometimes,
if over half a yard, the whole yard is reckoned.




62         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
a specific illustration from getting an armful of wood for your
square house parlor. You must first go several steps out of
youi way —west when your wood is east-to get to your
entry, and then traverse its whole length, then go through
your kitchen, and finally out of doors to get it, and retrace
your steps by the same long-winded and door-hedged route,
and through three doors; whereas, in the octagon, you go
direct from every room, by a few steps, to your stairway, at
the bottom of which is your wood-house, completely enclosed.
The same difference in favor of the octagon is equally great
in going from any part of either house to any part of the other.
What a vast number of steps will the octagon save a large
and stirring family annually over the square. This single
feature of this plan renders it invaluable, even though three
times more costly, whereas it is much LESS expensive, as we
shall soon see. It will at least enlist all HOUSEWIVEs-I do
not mean parlor toys —in its favor: and whatever saves
THEIR steps and vexations is truly invaluable.
The accommodation of a large party of friends furnishes
another illustration of the decided superiority of this plan over
the square, and doubly so over the winged or Doric style.
Here your sitting-room, parlor, and a large bed-room  are
thrown open into one room, and they all join the dining-room,
so that your entertainment is handy, and that your guests
may go from room to room without going through a cold,
wide entry. You can accommodate a much larger company
in the same sized house, and this juxtaposition of rooms greatly
promotes sociability, whereas the dividing entry partially
breaks the spell.
See, too, how much farther the same heat will go in the
octagon than in the square. Its escape is by radiation through
walls and crevices, and by open doors. In the octagon, it radiates from the sitting-room into the parlor, and the reverse,
or INTO ADJOINING ROOMS, and is therefore saved: whereas in
the square house it radiates from both sitting-room and parlor
into the ENTRY, and so escapes. And if an inside door is
opened in cold weather, the wind does not rush in like a hurricane, as if an outside door was opened, but only the confined
air of an adjoining room gently enters. All five of the inside or
entry doors of the square house are virtual outside doors, un



ARRANGEMENT OF ROOMS.               63
less you have a fire in the hall, at a great cost of fuel and
trouble, and without even then doing much good.
The KITCHEN of the octagon deserves especial remark.
The kitchen is the stomach of the house. Shall it then be
thrust away back out of doors, into another building? This
would be like putting the human stomach away down in the
feet. In the octagon kitchen, the wife, when she leaves the
sitting-room to attend to kitchen duties-pleasures-instead
of feeling that she is going away off alone out of doors, feels
that she is only a step removed from the rest of the family.
What say you, wives, to this?
The sight of a tidy kitchen is not so very disgusting, even
to men of refined tastes. None who are not too extra nice,
fastidious, and fashionable to eat, but like the sight of the
kitchen-excepting those double exquisite LADIES who are as
cordially disgusted with household duties as with good sense.
I know enough of sensible men to aver that they love to see
the kitchen, and that they even take pleasure in going into it.
In fact, the kitchen is as much the home of the house as the
house is of the farm-is the " holy of holies" of fire-side comforts. Then put it, as in this plan, alongside of the sittingroom and dining-room, and in the very heart of the house,
instead of out doors, as in the square form.
It is then very important that it be tight and COMFORTABLE.
Yet the square house kitchen has an outside door, an entry
door, a wood-house door, and a back kitchen door, which are
tantamount to four outside doors, besides two other doors
and all its windows; so that the wind draws through and
rapidly dissipates its heat, besides being in a separate building, having its kitchen stairway-virtually five outside and
three inside doors. Now I like my one outside and two
inside doored kitchen the best. I say two inside doors-the
stairway and sitting-room-because that marked in our plan
between the kitchen and bedroom can be omitted, and probably should be. And then no cold could come in from my sitting-room door, for, by supposition, that room is warm, nor
much from the stair door, because there should be a door at
the head of the basement stairs, so as to open or shut the draft
from the basement at pleasure. This may be my conceit, but,
really, I had rather have one of my kitchens than ten of your'




64        SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
old-style, wind-riven, out-of-doors, stomach-in-the-foot shanties.
Moreover, see what a handy little BASEMENT kitchen-close
by well and cooking range-this plan furnishes, which the old
virtually denies, all but a little back room, unless you add another L on beyond your kitchen. And my wash-room is just
where it should be-down stairs, yet light and dry-out of
parlor sight and smell, where all the heavy and unpleasant
work of the family can be done. Or, if preferred, this basement kitchen can be made larger, and have two windows, and
a dumb waiter to carry food and dishes up and down, and
serve as the kitchen proper-one of the other basement rooms
being appropriated to a sub-kitchen-and this up-stairs kitchen
be made a dining-room, and the omnium gatherum or common
rendezvous of the whole family, and connected with the bedroom-probably the best arrangement, and incomparably superior, in every possible respect, to the general arrangement of our kitchen and adjpining rooms. I may overrate
this plan, and underrate that, yet I can hardly help thinking
that the former will render a family much more comfortable
than any yet devised, besides enabling women to do their
work with double dispatch and comfort. This plan also joins
the sauce cellar and well with the work kitchen-a very
handy arrangement.
But see WHAT WE HAVE SAVED by the octagon plan. We
build our kitchen as well as wood-house WHILE LAYING OUR
HOUSE FOUNDATION, and thus SAVE ALL OUR KITCHEN AND WOODHOUSE MATERIALS, LABOR, FOUNDATION, AND ROOF! or somewhere near ONE FOURTH the net total cost of the whole house;
not, be it observed, by our board wall plan, but by our OCTAGON SHAPE. All this in ADDITION to all the items already shown
to be saved by the board wall, in length and superiority of
wall, cheapness, permanence, etc.
22. THE THIRD STORY OF THE OCTAGON.
To return to our sixteen-feet octagon, Fig. 15. Stepping
on to our stairs, which start close by the door which connects
the sitting-room with the stairway, we will go up two or three
stairs, toward the acute -tngle B, in Fig. 16, and after rising




SECOND STORY ROOMS.                  65
two or three steps, as our space will allow, we will turn on
a broad stair, and go up that central partition, rising high
enough to clear the cellar door, and, perhaps, turning again
before reaching the top, let us see how this suite of rooms can
be divided.
Fig. 15-Third story of the sixteen-feet octagon.,t_                     D.,
D                          IP I
3f ef
Ifxft   My
Q.Dr6 A's\D
-k _pI, |~  17/x f4d 
We will start our stairs so as to land at B on a broad stair,
and turn to the right into a delightful room rendered octagonal
by making a closet in each corner, thus corresponding with
5




66         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
the shape of the house, sixteen feet square, with one window
and two light bedrooms, with closets. Now this square parlor, opening into two bedrooms, is a very rare convenience,
such as our best houses rarely furnish, and for which, at our
boarding and public.houses, whoever has them must pay dear.
This is a real and rare luxury.
A friend, wife, and children, or a small family of boarders,
wish to have a common parlor with an adjoining bedroom for
themselves, and another for their children, or some near iriend:
this plan gives just the thing required. In your square house
they can find no such accommodation, but only TWO connecting
rooms —nor are these plenty; and hence they must either have
a bed in their sitting-room, or their children must lodge across
a cold entry and out of hearing. Or the heads of the family
may wish this for their private room, they sleeping in one
room, and their children in another.
Yet for them, probably, the other side of the partition
would be best, as it is largest; and, besides having one large
and two small bedrooms —enough room to lodge a good
many-in addition to a spacious parlor, see what a snug library, L, or cabinet of shells, opens into it, lighted, and triangular, so that, for its size, it furnishes much more shelf-room
than if square. Or some other use can be made of it, as
utility or fancy may dictate. At all events, it is a " cunning
little room," admirably suited and situated to a variety of appropriations. It would also make a fine bathing-room. Now
is not this a delightful and most superb suite of rooms, unequaled in any of our best houses?
Mark, here, the appropriation of the WHOLE of the 1218
square feet, except the fifty square feet occupied by your tenfeet half square; and, in place of wasting 8 X 36  288 square
feet in a room-sep~aating entry, observe, also, that the access
from each room to and from the stairway, both above and
below, characterizes this plan, the great utility of which was
shown in the lower story.'9 The same principle of saving
the heat, by its radiating into adjoining rooms, instead of being
carried off by a bellows entry, also characterizes this suite of
rooms. Nor can the wind get in, except at the windows.
From the entry it is excluded by the door at the top of the
cellar stairs; and the escaping heat from the stories below,




THE LIGHTING OF ROOMS.               67
furnace, etc., will render the entry quite warm enough, in the
coldest of weather, so that HEAT, instead of cold, will come in
at the entry doors.
The fire will be at F, opposite the window, so that, as you
sit with your feet to the fire, your back will be to the window,
which is just the thing for reading. And one large window
lights a room far better than two or three cross lights, which
confuse and injure the eye, shine through a newspaper and
blur it from one window, as you hold it up to read by another,
and are every way objectionable, as all opticians assert, and
the laws of optics prove.
This beautiful feature of this plan is so vitally important as
to deserve illustration. We generally wish to sit with our
feet to the fire, and comfort, in a cold day, requires that the
wind come upon our BACKS, instead of sides. else we are in
danger of freezing one side while we scoprch the other. Wind
at our backs is warded off. Not so when it strikes at our
sides. Now sit down with your feet to the fire of either of
those square rooms of the old-fashioned house. You have an
entry door at your back, two windows on one side, and one
in front, pouring a stream of cold air on all sides. You may
ward it off by turning half around, but then you are half FROM
THE FIRE, which is a position as unnatural as uncomfortable.
Sitting before the fire, you wish to read a paper. You
have no light at your back, and must either twist yourself into
a double bow knot, or else forego a front posture to the fire.
You turn some and raise your paper, when the light from
the window between the chimney and the corner shines
through and blurs your paper, so that you cannot distinguish
a single word. This compels you to turn FROM the fire, and
try again, and again you are disconcerted by three cross
lights-one at one side, one at the other, and the third behind;
and these causes of discomfort are PERPETUAL, because incorporated into the very structure of your house. Both these
evils this plan obviates. It receives light and wind at your
back, just where you require them, relatively to your fire,
prevents all cross lights, and is just the very thing for a comfortable read or chat. Your smoke ascends through brick or
earthen pipes in those TRIANGLES formed by the stairway partitions, of which hereafter. This plan also enables you to




68         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
have fewer windows; yet these can be large enough to light
all your rooms effectually-which is the cheaper for the same
surface of glass-as well as write at a desk without cross
lights, or the sun shining in from several places, and is exactly
what I fancy.
The dimensions of the rooms in the sixteen-feet octagon, on
this story, are as follows:
A square room,      16X 16 =256 sq. ft. =28 sq. yds.
Two adjacent bed-rooms, each
11X11 — 242  "  -13   "   each.
A large parlor,    13 X 22  286  "    31   "
A connecting spare room,
10X 16-160  "  -19   ":"    bedroom, 12X10=120  "    14A  "
66"      "      O10X8 —85  "   -9   "
L, a half square,    4X8=  32  "  -  3k  "
Stairway, half of a square,
10X10 — 50  "  -  5k  "
Total,                     1231
This is 13 square feet more than our 1218 square feet, but
the excess is made up by fractions of feet not counted, and
comes so near as to prove the general correctness of both
estimates.
To ascend by those winding stairs drawn in the staircase
so as to land, as before, on a broad stair opening into the attic
suite of rooms, partitioned in the same manner, or in any other
desired.
But instead of going only four feet before we put on the
roof, let us go six or seven, since it will not cost ten dollars
extra to do so, and will give us as fine a suite of rooms on the
fourth story as need be desired.
Now for our attic story and roof. Suppose we try some
other plan besides rafters. Bend a board for a pattern, and
afterbending another to it, and then a third, pin them together, and fasten the lower end at each corner. We thus form
a DOME-SHAPED roof, as in the old colony house roof, Boston,
which roof-boards will render abundantly strong; and thus




THE DOME                      69
make an octagon DOME, and light it and the stairway from
the top. Will not this look splendidly? And then see what
a large and magnificent room here is for a children's playroom, or gymnasium, or any like purpose to which you
choose to put it.
Or if rafters, boards, and shingles are preferred, we will
proceed thus. In the space close down between the roof and
floor we will make eight bins, as drawn in the accompanying
diagram, five to eight feet wide, as we like. By pinning rafters on to the wall at the eaves, and also to the inside walls
of these bins, we have a solid basis at the latter for rafters,
which we will have at each of the eight corners, and let them
into a large block at the apex, around which we will have
our windows. Short rafters can then be inserted into the
wall and these main rafters, and a roof, perfectly solid, formed
thereon, in the usual way of boards and shingles.
But a friend of mine says that a friend of his has invented
a water and frost proof composition, composed of bitumen.
It is perfectly hard. and can be put on at two dollars and a
half per hundred square feet, which is some THREE TIMES as
cheap as shingles-and be guarantied to stand, and answer a
far better purpose than ordinary shingles, and at a much less
pitch of roofs. It has recently been put upon the roofs of
several large houses in New York.  Nor do I see why it
cannot be plastered upon the outside of our whole house,
either alone, or else on top of a coat of plaster, for it is said
to " STICK like wax." At all events, it may be worth trial, as,
if it does not stand, it need not be paid for, and the house can
still be sided on over it just as well as if it were not there.
This will make a covering as cheap again as clap-boards.
At the peak of the dome, outside, a platform can be built,
say six feet above it, to keep off hail, rain, and snow, and for
an observatory, reached by a scuttle made down near one
of these bins, rendered safe by a railing, and accessible by
steps fastened on the roof. The chimneys can also be made
to come out down near these bins, and thus leave this magnificent room some thirty feet in diameter. This dome room
we will draw. It is twenty-nine feet in diameter, and contains about 668 square feet, less sixteen for stairway, the
same as in the stories below, of course guarded by balusters.




70         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
Now, did any body ever see a more delightful play-room for
children, or gymnastic room for all? A simple contrivance
Fig. 12.
rsas
for storing beds and gymnastic apparatus in these bins will
allow it to be converted now into one use and now into another,




THE DOME.                     71
But I esteem it most as a play-room for children, a gymnastic room for females, and a dancing-room. In my " Physiology," I urge the importance of private dancing parties,
especially for sedentary fashionables and confined operatives.
How many a debilitated constitution they would resuscitate I
How many hopeless invalids, now dying by inches, would
such rooms in our buildings restore to life, health, and happiness! How many a child save firom a premature grave I
The fact is, mankind are dying off like diseased sheep, in consequence of pure ennui. They want ACTION. How extravagantly fond of play are all children! Why? Because their
growth demands, with resistless imperiousness, muscular'exercise and free inspiration. But no; if in a village or city,
they must not go abroad for fear of accidents and bad associates-nor make any noise within doors, because it disturbs
ma's, or aunt's, or granny's tea-intoxicated nerves, lashed up
almost to the point of derangement by the want of just such
an exercise room. I do believe no one thing would confer so
great a blessing on men, women, and children, physically, intellectually, or morally, by developing their physical, and
thereby their moral faculties, as an exercise room. Here
they might use their lungs, and race about, without disturbing any one, because they could not be heard from the
street, and there would be a story of vacant bedrooms between them and the third story, and two stories between them
and the main family story. And this room would be perfectly
solid beneath, because its floor timbers rest on a solid board
wall, all the way up, to which they are all pinned fast.
Each roof-board would, of course, be pinned to two rafters,
so that there could be no sagging or giving, because this cannot occur without a shortening of the board, and this cannot
occur, because prevented by a board fastened at each end,
and these held fast by others at their respective ends, and so
on around the roof. Besides, all know what solidity is given
by the arched form.
And then, what a splendid prospect from the top observatory, thirty-six to forty feet above the ground!
And what a magnificent figure such a house would make,
situated on a commanding eminence! What a sunset view
from its observatory! What beauty of configuration! And




72         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
every thing about it on a scale so imposing, yet so chaste, so
stately, and at the same time so beautifully proportioned!
The stupendous structure perfect from basement to dome!
A house better than the castles of princes, in every respect!
Every way calculated for an earthly paradise!
Its ventilation how easy, how perfect, by means of portholes opening into that great thoroughfare through its centre,
and also the entry leading to it through its base. When a
summer breeze is stirring, every room in the whole house
would catch it, to say nothing of the ascent of air given by
the pneumatic law that air is less dense as we rise upward,
and therefore at the top than bottom of this house, and this
would secure a perpetual current. Moreover, every breeze
would enter it at three connected sides, and pass THROUGH
THE HOUSE, provided doors and windows were opened, besides
the ascending current up the stairway.
And this board wall keeps out cold and heat so much better
than joists and plastering, that it would not strike through during the day, but would preserve an even temperature, and
render the house warm in winter, cool in summer, always
dry, its ventilation perfect and easily controlled, room in any
abundance and just where it is wanted, and the whole structure complete from basement to dome.
Only one other thing remains to complete the most perfect
dwelling ever created-A PIAZZA ALL AROUND, AT EVERY STORY.
Those who have ever enjoyed these luxuries, are' loth to do
without them, while those who have not, know not how duly
to prize them. For one, I dearly love sunrise and sunset.
They diffuse through my whole being so sweet and holy a
calm, as literally to ravish my soul with earth's sweetest
pleasures.'Tis then I love to retire within my own soul, and draw
near to my Maker, imbibe his spirit, bask in the smiles of his
love, and open my soul to the influx of divine ideas and feelings. And would not such a house-its three porticoes, its
commanding prospect, its sky as well as land scenery-promote these heavenly aspirations?
But their structure. Let your floor timbers, which form
the floors of each story, project over the outside wall, say
eight feet, and be pinned at their inner ends, On pillars to




STRUCTURE OF THE PIAZZA.             73
they cross the outside wall, and they will of course be stiff
enough to support all the weight that could well be put on the
piazza, and could not give a particle; and there is your piazza,
hung out along the walls of your house, without any need
even of pillars, unless you think they would look better, though I
think they would not. Lay their floors along with that of your
house, and all your floors as you go up with the house. That
is, when you get the floor timbers of a story laid, before going
up with the outside walls, stop and LAY YOUR FLOOR, commencing at the outside of your portico, and laying the whole
1218 feet-which an eight feet portico would almost doubleirrespective of where either the outside or partition walls are
to come, and then start them on top of this floor according
as you wish your rooms. This would still further strengthen the house, already solid enough, and thus add certainty
to security.
The portico to the second story should form the roof of that
of the first, and that of the third, which should not be over
four feet wide, to that of the second; and eave-troughs, instead of, as now, projecting and hanging out beyond the wall,
should set'right on to, and form the top of the outside walls.
As the roof rises, it of course retires enough to empty its
contents into them, while they at the same time form a fourth
piazza, and a fifth should be made about half-way up the
dome, just above where the chimneys come out, and near
which the scuttle stairs should lead out to the observatory; the ascent to which should be by stairs on the top of
the roof.
The floor of the bottom piazza would also form a roof over
eight rooms, one each side of the octagon, eight by twenty
each, some of which might be inclosed by the board wall,
and others left open, and appropriated to various purposes.
The one on the north side, and along side of your milk room,
should be appropriated to an ice-house, made of three walls
on each side-the outside and inside of boards, and plastered, and the inner of boards set up edgewise, with charcoal
pounded in between the inner and middle, and sawdust between the outer and inner, or the reverse-connected with
your milk room by a door, or perhaps a double door, so as to
keep your cream and butter good, and in which to deposit




74        SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
fresh meat. An ice-house is a great family convenience. It
could be sunk into the ground several feet, and be filled through
the milk house, or by a trap-door on the piazza.
Another of these rooms-that opposite the wood cellarshould be appropriated to ranked wood, preparatory to its
being sawed, and would hold some eight cords, which, with
a wood-house full, would warm the house amply the year
round.
The south, south-east, and half of the south-west sides
should be appropriated to a green-house, which would require
nothing to complete it but glass, sloping from the outer edge
of the portico to the ground, and the two ends.
EDWIN FORREST suggested that beach pebbles, a foot or more
deep, at the bottom of a green-house, becoming heated by the
summer and diurnal sun, would retain and give off sufficient
heat to ripen the black Hamburg grape-as good eating as a
prince can enjoy-WITHOUT ARTIFICIAL HEAT, and thus save
the expense of flues and fire to heat the green-house. He
said his observation of the warmth of pebble beaches, in cold
mornings succeeding warm days, convinced him that these
pebbles, deposited to a due depth in a green-house, would carry this grape through. If not, our furnace, which is near,
could be made to contribute to this end. In fact, this grape
ripens, under glass, without artificial heat.
And then the cultivation of green-house plants, besides being so delightful to women and children, as well as to men,
could be made to subserve the important end of teaching children practical botany.
The basement entry would divide two of the portico octagons so as to make four boxes, eight by five, to be just the
things for tools, and which are often wanted, yet require shelter. If kept in their places, they could be very easily found.
Stairs may also connect the first and second porticoes, and perhaps narrow ones the second and third; egress to which from
the inside of the house may be by a door, as marked in a plan
of the second story, Fig. 16, or by low windows from the
rooms, or both. I think the latter, as a door and a window on
one side, and only a window on the others, would not look so
well proportioned.
If thought best to put pillars between the first and second








TOOLS                                                               SLOPS
D
\,,/ RAPERYIV.CL~~W LL
S TO'R ES.
CRAPER Y




BOARD WALLS IN PLACE OF FRAMES.              75
these piazzas for looks-they will not be needed for supportbee-hives could be hung on both sides of those at the south,
south-east, and south-west sides, that is, over the top of the
green-house, on shelves-in place of banisters-on which to
set them; so that their swarming, working, etc., could be easily seen.
Than such a house, what earthly habitation could be more
beautiful, more imposing, more convenient, or more comfortable?*
Let us now estimate the ROOM in this sixteen-feet-sided octagon, both absolute, and as compared with that of a thirtytwo feet square house (Fig. 10, 40 X 42), with a rear kitchen
and wood-house to boot.
SIXTEEN-FEET OCTAGON BASEMENT.
Sub-kitchen...    270 sq. ft.
Store-room  and cistern. 250   "
Cellar....    120   "
Milk-room..    100   "
Wood-house..    120   "
860
Entry.... 350
Total in basement. 1210
UNDER THI PORTICO.
Ice-house...    128 sq. ft.
Wood rank..  128   "
Lumber...    128   "
Green-house... 256   "
Tubs, tools, etc...    160   "
800
Total                                  1660
* Those who preach that we should hate this life and its blessings in order to
prepare for another, would, of course, object to so enchanting a mansion, as making us love the world so well as to be loth to leave it.
10




716        SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM,
Total of basement and portico....   1o60
MAIN OR SECOND STORY.
Parlor                    300 sq. ft.
Sitting room...   300  "
Kitchen and pantry.. 294  "
Back parlor and closets.. 196  "
1090
Add entry and stairway. 121  "
1211
THIRD STORY.
Square room... 256  "
Triangular bedroom and
closets...   127  "
"6        "  127  "
Long.         187 1
Triangular bedroom.. 126  "
Large parlor L, etc..   840  "
1163
Add stairway...  60  "
1223
FOURTH STORY.
The same...              1163
ATTIC STORY.
Outside bens...   552
Play room... 650  "
1202
Stairway 5 X 3      ~       15  "
1217
Grand total...     6278
Let us next estimate the room in a thirty-two feet square
house.
Total room -. 32 X 32=1024
Deduct entry  -    - 7 x20 —and two chimneys  176
Net room left -   -         -             848




THE WINGED STYLE COMPARED WITH THE OCTAGON.  77
Its three stories and attic=848X4, and a 20X20 feet cellar=grand total net room 3392.
The octagon and square, then, compare thus:
6278         523         52        26       1i1
--       12 =-    10 =' 2 = 2         14 -_ —
3392'       282         28        14'        1,
which equals six sevenths, or ALMOST DOUBLE THE ROOM ill
the octagon over the square-a part by its shape, a part by
its entries, and the balance by the use of the whole basement,
instead of a part, as is usual. Yet we reckon the whole of
the garret roomn in the square house, whereas only a small
part of it is usually converted to any valuable use.  We
reckon both garret and cellar in our octagon, to show how
unwise to throw away room which can be converted to ends
thus valuable.
Estimate of the net room in a house thirty-six by fortyfour, and kitchen. Each room 18X18=324, less 24 square
feet for chimney, and fourteen lost between the chimney and
corners, as already explained,=28G.
The four rooms on each story, and four stories,
16X286=4476
Kitchen, 20 X 16,                             320
Cellar, 20 X20, -              - - -           400
Wood-house, 16X8,     - - -                    128
5324
Less, by 954 square feet, than our sixteen-feet octagon contains. Yet there remains a ten by twelve garret room over
the kitchen, but this will require a deduction for stairs off of
the kitchen.
But suppose the builder to be a man of means, and to want
a large and superb double house, with a great abundance of
room, and every convenience. He builds an upright, with
wings.
Upright, 32X2+42X2=148 cir., and three stories,
148X3=                                    444
Wings, each 27 feet long, X2=54X2=108 X2 stories,=                                    216
Wood-house, 27X2-54X2 stories,=               108
768




78         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
Fig. 18-Winged house, 32 by 42.
9x42     9x12
BED      BED
$.PARtE R.
tiYJRY 10 x  b4
PA fR LOR
21f 3e sX              x 22,, 4x/o R
E.NTRY
NVA Z  Jt. WOOD
22.Xv~r~3J            2rxJ2








Fig. 19.-32-feet Octagon.
/' 2 
-39030
__0                     0 76= ~So0D
\i>3P2.                               woos2X
JR1ThO D                      R                      D   i 
20Box xo 1oo....':-'C  A'.




THE WINGED STYLE COMPARED WITH THE OCTAGON.  79
In reckoning the upright, we virtually reckon the gable ends
of the wings, and hence should reckon only their sides, and
so of the wood-houses'.
Each wing is 20X27 —540 square feet X the 2
wings = 1080 X the two stories, -         2160
The upright rooms, exclusive of the entry, are
24 X 44 = 1056 X the three stories, =      3168
Three attics,                                  2336
7664
Deduct kitchen entry, 3 X 12 - 36 X the 2 stories, =   72
Grand total,                                   7592
I also wish to build an octagon of 32-feet sides, also three
stories, 32 X 8 =256 X the 3 stories =768 outside wall, or just
equal to that of the winged house. It will cost little more
to put up this 32-feet octagon than a smaller one, except the
additional boards, which is but a trifle, because it requires no
more time to lay and pin a 16-feet board than one ten feet,
unless you increase the number of windows and doors. One
window to a side of a first-class octagon would be deemed
hardly sufficient, and hence our 27-feet octagon embraced
two, sixteen windows per story, which many think will give
a better arrangement of rooms. At least, it will give double
the NUMBER of rooms in both basement and upper stories, and
add to the beauty of the house. This plan also gives a superb
suite of rooms alongside of the four main rooms. And since
it costs little more time or pins to place and pin a 16-feet
board than one 10 feet-that is, since a 32-feet square octagon
costs but a trifle more than one twenty-four or twenty-seven
feet, if room be an object, let us plan one for thirty-two feet,
as drawn in the accompanying diagram.




80        SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
Fig. 20.-32-feet Octagon, main story.
X'  A   m'D' -,      D 
AL sOR              |..
D;  D4,
\   ">6xJ4S;                                  /
0 ~D                  D              D
4f                                      -
~[~~~~ ~6 l I   ~XO~
J~ ~ ol ~




SECOND STORY OF THE 32-FEET OCTAGON
Fig. 21.-Second story of the 32-feet Octagon.
i:.9 J                           L
f  ~       /            




82         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
This diagram is drawn on a scale of sixteen feet to the inch,
and gives us
A parlor, kitchen, sitting and dining-rooms,
each 936 X 4 -                     3744
Four square rooms, each 16X 16=256 X 4  1024
Four half-square = two square 16 X 16X2 - 512
5280
Deduct for entry and stairs 10 x 10 X 2  200
5080
Second story, the same aggregate,  - - 5280
Deduct entry and stairs - - -  - -  450
4830
Third story, same  - - - - - - - -          4830
Dome and side rooms, less 4X4=16 for stairs   5264
- 20,004
The grand total of the winged house was 7592 to 29,400 in
the octagon, which gives almost FOUR TIMES more room in
the octagon than in the winged house, though their outside
WALL is the same number of feet; reckoning our basement,
which contains                                     5280
Less the two entries —750X 96 —846  - -           846
4434
The whole house will then contain 29,400, besides the grapery, ice-house, and all the room under the portico.
To the splendor of its dome we invite special attention. It
contains 5280 less these bins, 29 X 8 - 232 X 8 - 1856 X
24 stairway =3400. It is capable of seating eight hundred,
and holding some thirteen hundred persons.
And what could equal it for dancing and gymnastics combined, as the gymnastic apparatus could be so arranged as to
leave ample room for the largest dance. Admirable as are
all the other features of this magnificent palace, this is one of
the most useful, pleasure-giving, and health and life manufacturing appurtenances of this plan. How infinitely does it surpass those attic rooms generally made in our first class houses.
Then look at the commanding and stupendous appearance
of this edifice. Its ground size would seem to require, and its




32-FEET OCTAGON DOME.                           83
Fig. 22. —32-feet Octagon dome.
entire plan facilitates, its being carried up story after story, at
pleasure, and the construction of porticoes all around it at each
story desirable. Look at these two figures, the octagon and
the winged, or even the square, and say which strikes you as
the most noble looking and truly beautiful.  The octagon
solid, massive, compact, and spherical; the winged full of
outs and ins, all long and no wide; its wings low and centre




84         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
high, that is, a break between them, or the same as three
houses set close together; the octagon beautifully proportioned every way, the winged out of all proportion; the octagon exactly adapted to have a promenade all around at each
story, with pillars, which would add greatly to its coolness,
beauty, and utility, the other not thus adapted; the octagon
with a single regular roof, the winged with four roofs; the
octagon exactly adapted to make a magnificent appearance on
a rise of ground, the other not; in short, the octagon perfectly
beautiful, and the winged a violation of every principle of
taste and beauty.
The same difference in kind, though less in degree, obtains
between the octagon and the square, with an L or a J in the
rear. In short, you have only to look at our ground plan of
the three figures to see which is incomparably superior to both
the others.
23. ITS SUPERIORITY FOR LARGE FAMILIES AND PARTIES.
The superiority of its internal structure we have already
shown. But some advantages of this large octagon over the
small one deserves additional remark. The entry takes out
one corner of a square, the staircase another, and the angle of
the house another, from each room, each of equal size. Now
by making a closet of the same size in the other corner of each
room, you perceive each of these four rooms to be an octagon-in beautiful keeping with the form of the house. Behold those four large and splendid rooms.  Each 936-75
square feet, or 95 square yards; and all together almost 4000
square feet, and 400 square yard! You will look in vain
for as splendid a suite of rooms.  Now throw open all the
doors, and stand in the folding-doors, between parlor and sitting-room, or between the sitting and dining-rooms, and what
an audience could be accommodated, both with sight and
hearing! and how many also on the portico!
The time will come when the order of conducting social
parties will be changed, so as to require sentiments, toasts,
short speeches, pithy debates, racy comments, as well as dancing. Behold what rooms for such purposes! They would
accommodate a large number of persons seated, and many




ITS SUPERIORITY FOR LARGE FAMIIES AND PARTIES.  85
more standing, two thirds of which, besides the hundreds that
could see and hear from outside, could see the speaker!-almost equaling a church.
CLOSETS are among the most convenient appurtenances of
a home. Their utility every housekeeper must know —negratively, if they have kept house without them, and positively,
if they have enjoyed them. A room without theu, if used
much, must always be in disorder. Things we MUST HAVE,
and if there is no place in which to put them away between
times, they must of course lie around on chairs, under foot, on
tables, beds, and bureaus, and hence keep the entire room
perpetually lumbered; nor can the nicest housekeeper KEEP
them in place; because, how can she keep things in their
places, when she has no place to put them? Order about a
house is one of its greatest possible prornotives of domestic
enjoyment, and this order these closets in those acute angles,
as seen in our drawings, admirably facilitate, not only without
impairing the room, but actually turning to this best of purposes, room otherwise both useless and unsightly. And then
each child can have a closet exclusively to itself, its order
practically inculcated, and also, different closets for different
kinds of things, and thus the most perfect order secured.
Suppose two brothers, whose families could live together
in love, should occupy this house. They could have two front
doors, a wall between both houses, the stairway made twelve
feet instead of ten, divided by a middle partition, with separate flights of stairs for each house; the kitchen could be converted into a sitting-room, and, together with the parlor, constitute a front and back parlor united by folding-doors, and
thus of the other side; abundance of room in the upper stories for both families, and cellar room below for both; another
kitchen could be made of one of those bedrooms, and also
another sub-kitchen provided out of the great surplus of room
in the basement story; the dome could be common ground,
and the four piazzas all around, connected together by stairs,
what could surpass it? They might have an internal door
connecting the two suites of apartments or not, as they
liked. How much cheaper and better than to have two
houses!
Suppose parents and a large family of children love each




86         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
other cordially, and desire to live togrether.  Let the children
marry good companions, and those who are agreeable to all
parties, and bring them home to their father's house, and thus
save all that heart-breaking solicitude and painful anxiety consequent to the parents and daughters, on leaving the old home
associations and dear friends. Let the four large rooms be
common ground, where all meet at every meal, and spend as
much or as little of their time in these common rooms as they
like, yet each could have a suite of private family rooms above.
The grand-children, who do not like to emigrate, could pursue
a like course, as here is room for EIGHT FAMILIES on each of
the upper floors, with a lighted cellar for each, besides all
those rooms on the main floor. Here both association, and
also isolation, just as far as each individual pleased, could be
enjoyed. And then, what a common play-room for all the
children, or a play and school-room, in the dome!  This
would save mothers that inexpressible tedium of being co.nfined, every hour and day of every year, to one or two children, who, having nothing to satiate their craving for action,
tease and fret their mothers perpetually every hour of their
lives, keep them from lectures, visiting, and recreation, and
render those children ill-natured and sickly by confinement
within doors. But where there are a score of children together, the larger ones care for the smaller, and all amuse
each other, and thus relieve their mothers of this most distressing confinement, as well as allow them ample time to
work, visit, attend lectures, and the like. The advantages of
association in this respect are great indeed, as also in the matter of cookery, fuel, and many like respects. And a house
like this could easily accommodate TWO HUNDRED.
Or a large hotel is wanted. See how direct this plan renders the access to all the rooms in the house —twenty-four on
each floor, or one hundred rooms on four floors, besides the
basement, the dome story being cut up into rooms, excepting
a small dome at the peak. Or it could be carried two stories
higher, or be made larger on the ground, or contain twelve
instead of eight sides, and thirty-six rooms on each story for
five stories, besides the first story and basement, equal to two
hundred and sixteen rooms, capable of accommodating five
hundred boarders l And all around one central point, instead




ITS ADAPTATION TO PUBLIC BUILDINGS.       87
of, as now, having ups and downs, criss-cross entries, much
room wasted, and the whole exceedingly inconvenient.
Or let the house be twelve sided, with forty feet to a side,
no central stairway, but two front doors on each side, opening
into a suite of rooms, each large and numerous enough for a
family, and, of course, sufficient to accommodate twenty-four
families to each floor for five or six stories, or some hundred families in the house —each the same as if in a separate
house, opening on to the portico, and with its stairs giving ease
of access, along with perfect isolation, together with a coal
and sauce-room for most of them in the basement, and costing
not over $6000.
Or suppose a stock company of poor men organize and contribute a given sum toward building it, say from $50 to $200
each, according as the rooms chosen are on the upper or
lower stories, with the privilege of renting it if he prefers.
See how cheap and how excellent a home.
Or as accommodating factory operatives; see how vastly
more convenient, and less expensive, than the hundreds of
houses now required to acco nmodate the same number of
operatives. In this case, one house would furnish living room
for all who could work in one factory.
For cities, too, where room is so scarce and high, how
great the saving-more than TEN-FOLD; though in this case
it would take about three lots for each house. How great a
relief would it furnish a dense population.
Look at this form for churches, lecture rooms, etc. The
same sized wall could accommodate one fifth more hearers
than the square, and a fourth more than that oblong form in
which they are generally built. And this form brings all the
hearers much nearer the speaker than now, and obviates those
deep, dark, distant corners which break the voice, produce
echoes, and remove hearers far off from the speaker. Hence
this form, besides seating a fourth more within the same
sized wall, will enable the same volume of voice to reach
one fourth more, that is, accommodate twice as great an
audience as the present. This form would also bring the entire congregation facing EACH OTHER as well as the speaker, and
thus promote that SOCIABILITY for which they meet. Yet for
this purpose a ten or twelve-sided house would be preferable.




88         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
Or Associationists, who wish to begin on a comparatively
small scale, and to enlarge their home as their numbers increase. This house can be built for some three or four thousand dollars, according to size and style, and then house after
house added-a provision for anchoring them together being
easily made —and these can be built one by one, around a
common centre, in the form of a grand octagon, or decagon,
or duodecagon-the latter probably being the best, so as to
allow them to build by degrees, and yet when completed
to be a most commodious, yet most imposing structure. And
what a place for a grand assemblage in the court formed by
this circle of houses, and from the five story galleries of each
of the eight or twelve houses! What could equal this general plan for this or any kindred purpose?
For state asylums, also, how incomparably superior to the
present plan —say to the Massachusetts State Lunatic Asylum,
as an example, which has a disjointed front, composed of half
a score of houses, and as many roofs, and then half as many
L's or wings projecting back at right angles, and a most
homely object beheld from the rear. Or if the New York
State Lunatic Asylum, at Utica, had been constructed on this
general plan, one hundred dollars would have gone further
than one thousand now have, and made a far more sightly and
commodious structure.
Or look at this plan for a college-the basement for cooking
and dining-rooms, the next for lecture-rooms, and the upper
floors capable of accommodating just as many students as you
like, according to its number and length of sides and stories.
Access through the centre, and folding-doors through the
middle, which, closed, divide it into lecture-rooms, or, opened,
form a splendid chapel.
But the variety of most useful applications of this form of
building, over all those now in use, is innumerable, and its superiority most marked in every conceivable respect. Nor is
the day far distant when it will superced. all others. It is
the style of NATURE, and will commend itself to the good sense
and practical application of all classes.
Its comparative cost has already been shown to be less than
that of the present form. Windows, doors, and finishing,
would of course be the same in both forms, and vary with the




RAIN-WATER CISTERNS.                89
number and style of finishing, but the frame and floors will
be from a quarter to a third less. At all events, if in this line
of business, I would engage to put up such a house, and fit it
for plastering, at three fourths the price of ordinary carpenters for a like stage of advancement.
24. A RAIN-WATER CISTERN
Is too convenient an appendage of a good house to be omitted in our plan. Where, then, shall it be located? Out of
doors, under ground? Why not in our basement, especially
since we have spare room in abundance? Why not on a
level with, and by the side of, our sub-kitchen, and also adjoining our green-house? We can then, when it is full, draw
water directly into our sub-kitchen, and pump it into both
kitchens, and also draw it from a conductor into our greenhouse. It should be made of water cement, plastered upon
our board wall, so that its cost would be trifling. If thus enclosed within the house, it would of course never freeze.
It should have two drains-one fi-om the bottom, so that it
can be emptied and cleansed, and the other from the top, so
that any surplus water may run off; both of which should lead
into, or through, the green-house. Another pipe should connect it with an apparatus for cooking food for animals by
steam, which should be attached to the furnace.
One of those triangular rooms or closets near the entry, in
one or both the upper stories, could also be easily converted
into a cistern, to supply water to the chambers and baths, by
simply plastering them with water cement instead of common
plaster, and leading the water directly from the eave-troughs
inwardly, by tin tubes, into it, and then conducting the surplus water into the basement cistern just described.  Perhaps each builder could contrive the details of this arrangement to his own liking better than is here done; yet that
some such plan might be executed, at a few dollars extra
cost, is evident-because our plan provides for the building
and lathing of the WALLS of Lht cisterns for a mere trifle,
along with those of the house, and the water lime will cost
only some two dollars per barrel, to be mixed with two thirds
its own bulk of sand; and once executed, their utility, thus




90         SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
located within the house, and so accessible to both the kitchens and all the chambers, would be far more convenient than
out-of-door cisterns.
25. THE ROOF.
Though this formed house allows the roof to be framed,
boarded, and shingled, just as roofs are commonly made, yet
let us see if some improvement cannot be effected in this respect, in looks and cost, as well as in durability.
The roof of the Old Colony Railroad Depot in Boston is
made spherical, by bending the first board the shape required,
and then nailing one after another to it, till it is made strong
enough-which nailing preserves them in the arched form.
The rafters are then placed, bowing side up, anchored at
the bottom, and inserted and fastened into a block at the top,
and braced. How admirably this arched roof would set off
our octagon! It is every way adapted to this style of house.
The eight corners are, of course, perfectly solid; because no
one of them can give a hair's breadth without displacing all
the others, which is impossible. The eight main rafters, therefore, whether straight or arched, rest on a perfectly solid
basis, and the shorter ones are also solid; seo that, since the
BASIS of our arch is solid, and since these main or corner rafters are inserted into a solid block at the top, pressed equally
from all its sides, and since the roof boards cross these rafters, so as to form an arch the other way, surely no greater
solidity or strength can be required than this structure would
give, even without bracing. Yet how easily are these rafters
braced near their top, if this should be deemed necessary, by
spiking boards across from one to the other.
It deserves remark, that this form of roof parries violent
winds, and sustains heavy burdens of snow, much better than
those in two great sheets. It seems to me that this form of roof
is peculiarly adapted to sustain a towering steeple, especially
if two sets of timbers, mutually braced together, should be
made. Yet of this, carpenters are the best judges.
This form of roof can, of course, be shingled as well as the
)resent form; yet it is peculiarly well adapted to some of
those recent inventions which dispense with shingles, and




THE ROOF.                          91
plaster with some kind of cement directly upon the roofboards, which should, of course, be laid close together. In
Fulton street, New York city, on the right hand, three or
four doors below Nassau street, is a furnace store, covered
with a bituminous compound, overlaid with pebble stones,
which is impervious to water, and which the owner likes so
well that he has recently had the same compound put upon a
large foundery. It costs only two and a half cents pcer
square foot. Many other houses are covered with the same
compound, and its inventor is doing a lucrative business-an
evidence that it is both cheaper and better than shingles.
This second allusion to this invention is made, because the
author has since SEEN and been on a roof covered with it.
Its inventor's address is No. 565 Houston street, and his
name is R. Beman.
That some substitute for shingles-cheaper, better, and
easily put on-can and will be devised, I am fully confident.
Indeed, I consider shingles but poorly adapted for roofing, and
their being soon superseded by some sort of plastering compound, certain. The following recipe for roofs comes from a
source entitled to some credit:
" It is frequently necessary to construct out-buildings, sheds, etc., of a
cheap character, for temporary use, but which are, nevertheless, required
to be well protected from the weather. The following simple and expeditious method of roofing out-houses, and other similar structures, may
therefore be of service to some of our readers.  The rafters are to be
four inches deep and two and a half thick; the covering to be of boards
three quarters of an inch thick, straight-edged, and securely nailed, to
prevent warping. Over this, place a course of common sheathing paper,
such as is commonly used under the copper sheathing of vessels, and make
-it fast by small nails. Then apply a composition made of the following
ingredients, viz.: eight gallons of common tar, two of Roman cement,
three pounds of tallow, and five of rosin.
1" These ingredients should be well boiled, and applied when hot. Care
should be taken that the composition be spread as evenly as possible, and
covered before it has cooled with a stratum of sharp, finely sifted sand.
On this another coat of tar is to be spread, and another coat of sand as
before, after which.nothing more is required to secure the possession of a
tight roof for years, except an occasional dressing of tar.
Some may object to this species of roofing from the supposition that,
being composed mostly of highly deflagrable materials, it would prove too
combustible. But this, if it be a reasonable objection, may be easily obviuted by giving the whole a coat composed of the following materials:
Slack common lime in:a close vessel, and when cool, pass eight quarts
through a fine sieve; add to it one quart of fine salt and two gallons of




92          SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
pure water. Boil and skim. Then to every four gallons of this mixture
add one and a quarter pounds of rock alum, three fourths of a pound of
potash, and five quarts of fine beach sand. This wash will now admit any
coloring matter that may be applied with a paint brush in the same manner as oil paints. A writer, remarking upon the good qualities of this
preparation for roofs, says —' It looks better than paint, will stop leaks in
the roof, prevent moss fiom growing, and when laid upon brick work will
render it impenetrable to rain or moisture.' A wash of this kind might
beneficially be applied to the roofs of houses, barns, and other buildings,
instead of paints."-Maine Farmer.
26. THE OUTSIDE FINISH OF HOUSES.
Nothing seems to be wanting in our plan but some OUTSIDE
FINISH, in the form of PLASTER. Though this plan allows a
covering of clapboards, or sheeting, equally with a frame
house, yet, since it must be plastered outside, so as to keep
the dampness from striking the boards-because then it will
strike through-if we can substitute some kind of plaster
which will adhere firmly, and resist frost and rain, we can
cover our house very cheaply, and give it the appearance of
marble, plain or clouded, or paint it to our liking.
That nature has furnished better materials, if we will discover and apply them, than boards and paint, is apparent;
for, besides their expensiveness, they must, as the world fills
up, become too scarce to supply the demand. Our plan is
peculiarly adapted to a plaster finish, and that such cheap and
durable finishes can be made, is a matter not of inference but
of EXPERIMENT.  The State-House at New Haven, Conn., is
plastered outside, and has withstood the action of frost and
rain over thirty years, and without the expense of frequent
repainting.  So well has this plaster finish recommended
itself practicallyI in  New  Haven, that all their first-class
houses are now covered with it. The FEASIBILITY of an outside plaster finish is thus placed, by experiment, beyond a
doubt. Indeed, that bituminous compound just described for
roofing can be spread upon the outside wall just as well as
on the roof, for its ADHERING property is so great, that it was
with difficulty that I could detach a single pebble. Yet its
dark color is objectionable. Whatever can be made to withstand frost, will adhere very firmly to our board wall, because:f the superiority of its lathing.




OUTSIDE FINISH.                         93
The following recipes, clipped from the papers, are given
as received, without endorsement, but not without considerable confidence in their durability.
"The Pittsburgh Chronicle says an individual has a mode of manufacturing marble which is pronounced superior to any other artificial stone or
marble in use, and will supersede the use of lime mortar in the various
processes of plastering, and will be extensively used for stucco work,
mosaic, statuary, mantle-pieces, table slabs, atmospheric and hydraulic
cement, roofing of houses, and paving of streets, etc.  It will set or
harden'in six hours, when applied in plastering houses. It will resist the
action of atmospheric heat, damp, fi'ost, etc., and is susceptible of a high
polish, and can be manufactured at a cost little exceeding ordinary lime
mortar."*
"Much is said of the brilliant stucco whitewash on the east of the
President's house at Washington. The following is a recipe for making
it, with some additional improvements learned by experiment:
"Take half a bushel of nice, unslacked lime, slack it with boiling
water, covering it during the process, to keep in the steam.  Strain the
liquor through a fine sieve or strainer, and add to it a peck of clean salt,
previously dissolved in warm water; three pounds of ground rice, ground
to a thin paste and stirred and boiled hot; half a pound of powdered
Spanish whiting, and a pound of clean glue, which has been previously
dissolved by first soaking it well, and then hanging it over a slow fire, in a
small kettle, within a large one filled with water. Add five gallons of hot
water to the whole mixture, stir it well, and let it stand a few days, covered from the dirt. It should be put on quite hot; for this purpose it can
be kept in a kettle, on a portable furnace. It is said that about one pint
of this mixture will cover a square yard upon the outside of a house, if
properly applied.
1" Brushes more or less small may be used, according to the neatness of
the job required.  It retains its brilliancy for many years.' There is
nothing of the kind that will compare with it, either for inside or outside
walls. Coloring matter may be put in and made of any shade you like.
Spanish brown stirred in will make a red or pink, more or less deep,
according to the quantity. A delicate tinge of this is very pretty for inside walls. Finely pulverized common clay, well mixed up with Spanish
brown, before it is stirred into the mixture, makes it a lilac color. Lampblack and Spanish brown mixed together produce a reddish stone color.
Lamp-black in moderate quantities makes a slate color, very suitable for
the outside of buildings. Yellow ochre stirred in makes a yellow wash,
but chrome goes farther, and makes a color generally esteemed prettier.
In all these cases, the darkness of the shade will of course be determined
by the quantity of the coloring matter used. It is difficult to make a rule,
because the tastes are very different; it would be best to try experiments
on a shingle, and let it dry.  I have been told that green must not be
mixed with lime. The lime destroys the color, and the color has an
effect on the whitewash, which makes it crack and peal. When walls
have been badly smoked, and you wish to have them a clean white, it is
* If any reader can give any information touching this invention, it will be
thankfully received.




94         SUPERIORITY OF THE OUTAGON FOR31M.
well to squeeze indigo plentifully through a bag into the water you use,
before it is stirred into the whole mixture. If a larger quantity than five
gallons should be wanted, the same proportion should be observed."
Many readers will no doubt remember that splendid mansion in Broad street, Philadelphia, near Chestnut, which is
plastered and colored yellow, and has withstood the weather
these ten years, to my knowledge, probably longer.
The common-sense view of this subject appears to be this:
Common lime and sand plastering, being porous, imbibes
moisture, the freezing and thawing of which break it loose,
which can be prevented by stopping the ingress of water.
This appears to be neither impossible, nor even difficult,
and is doubtless the object of the glue and ground rice in
the above recipe. Other recipes mention whale oil, probably
for a similar purpose. Now will not a coating or sizing of
arrow-root or potato starch, made thin, and put on evenly
with a brush,'so fill up the pores of the plastering that paint
or varnish, instead of striking in at once, will dry as on
boards, and thus form a coating impervious to both water
and dampness? Why will not a coating made of one part
tallow, two of beeswax, and four or six of rosin, like that
used fQr grafting, put on warm with a brush, do?
Yet even if some coating of this kind should be tried, and
fail, it will offer no impediment to future clapboarding.
27. INSIDE FINISH.
In New England, houses are generally finished inside by
being PAPERED over the plastering.  This certainly improves
their looks very much, as long as the paper is kept clean,
besides adding materially to their warmth; yet its great objection is, that smoke, fly-specks, etc., soon soil the paper,
and render frequent renewal necessary.
This difficulty has been completely obviated by J. Lane,
of East Abington, Massachusetts, who put on, with a paintbrush, two coatings of arrow-root starch, made thin, and
followed with a coat of VARNISH SO that it can be WASHED
without the water defacing the paper.  This starch strikes
through the paper, and fastens it to the wall, and the varnish
gives a shining or glistening appearance to the room, which




INSIDE FINISH.                  95
struck me, on seeing it, as peculiarly agreeable. It had been
often washed, yet the paper appeared as perfectly clear and
new as if just put on. This is not theory, but an EXPERIMENT, worth repeating. As the starch and varnish are both
transparent, the colors of the paper shine in all their original
clearness and beauty for any required length of time. Such
finish is as easily washed as whitewashed, and obviates the
continual soiling of clothes with whitewash. It is a very
great improvement.
One precaution should, however, be observed-to select
colors which will not SPREAD when the starch is applied,
which is easily ascertained by trying the experiment on a
small piece.
The Boston inside finish of door and window casings and
mop-boards, which dispenses with all mouldings, and is perfectly plain, except that the top board is wider than the
others, struck me as more truly beautiful than all this gingerbread cornicing and moulding, besides being so much more
easily cleaned.
The author designed to have grouped together in this
work a few of the most important improvements and conveniences recently devised, as well as to add a chapter on domestic conveniences and general arrangements about house;
yet subsequent reflection led him to confine himself mainly to
this board wall and octagon styles and their accompaniments,
in the body of the work, and, if thought best, to throw these
other incidental matters into an appendix, in future editions.
The following bears too directly upon the board style of
building which constitutes our theme, not to be inserted, and
shows how abundant the kind of timber it requires is, and
also that, if this plan were adopted, so as to create a market,
how easily and how cheaply it could be supplied.
" Sufficient attention is not paid to the preservation of the forests of the
United States, and it is highly probable that the next generation will suddenly find timber very scarce and high. The waste of timber is very
great in all the wooded regions, and the demand promises before many




96           SUPERIORITY OF THE OCTAGON FORM.
years to exceed the supply. In England, for centuries past, some of the
largest fortunes have been derived from timber plantations, and the surest
fortune which a man could leave to his children, has been by preparing
an extensive timber plantation, which, though returning him nothing
during his life-time, has been in many instances a mine of wealth to
his children.  Many of the distinguished nobility. in that country have
practiced this system for many successive generations, and to great advantage. We believe many of our citizens could in no way more surely
leave a valuable inheritance to their children, than by purchasing some
of the cheap lands in the country, accessible to railways and rivers, and
making thereon a plantation of timber trees, which would be attended
with but trifling expense.
1" The waste of pine in the forests of Maine, the scarcity and high price
of hard wood timber in many parts of the country, are well known. In
other par:s of the country less bountifully supplied, the destruction is also
going on. Great Britain is cutting off all the forests in Canada and New
Brunswick; most of our Western States are thinly wooded, and even
Western New York now depends upon Canada for a supply of building
lumber.  In the $eninsula of Michigan, the best pine region of the whole
West, the Buffalo papers inform us the waste is almost incredible. A
dozen or more of saw-mills are there erected in the midst of the government lands, and are there unmolested using up the government timber
astonishingly fast. They saw nothing but the best logs, leaving all others
which may be felled out to rot on the ground, and they work night and
day in order to make as much as possible before any demand is made upon
them by the government for stumpage. In addition to all other uses, the
demand for fuel for the steamers of the West, is making sad havoc with
the forests along the rivers. A careful calculation of a skillful engineer
has made this demand equal to 10,220,000 cords per annum."-Newburyport Herald.
The author is far from claiming perfection for this plan of
building. No one mind can perfect any thing; nor has the
author been able to devote much time to the composition of
this work. Doubtless every reader could suggest some improvenment either in the location, or form,.or arrangement of
some of the rooms, or closets, or house appurtenances; but
he does claim that this kind of wall, and this general form of
houses and arrangement of rooms, are every way superior
to those now in use, and strike out a plan which can be varied
by each builder to suit his taste and means, besides being
susceptible  to improvement almost indefinitely.   Is it not
deserving of attention and practical trial?








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THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEALTH                          TO THE PUBLIC.
Will be fully dischased, including Food,
Will beulydscsedncui, We have obtained the co-operation of the
Drinks, Clothing, Air, and Exercise, showing. Z-11~~~  a.     leading hydropathic writers, in order to pretheir effecta on both body and mind.
sent the whole combined talent of the entire
R EFORMS                    profession. Besides this, we have had a wide
Tn all our modes of life will be pointed out, experience in journal publishing. and have
and made so plain that "li he that runs may secured the services of nearly all the medical
read." We believe fully that man may pro- reformers in the land.
long his life much beyond the number of years        THIS JOURNAL
usually attained. We propose to show how.
Will be published monthly, containing thirT O INVALI DS, m              ty-two large pages of the best matter, with
No matter of what disease, the principles reference tothe application of this system
of Hydropathy may safely be applied, and in adapted to all classes, on the following
nine cases out of ten, great benefit may be    te       s, n            n
derived therefrom.                              TERMS, IN ADVANCE:
Single copy,. $1 00 Ten copies,. $7 00
TO THOSE IN HYEALTH.                Five copies,. 4 00 Twenty copies 10 00
Without health, even life is not desirable,
unless a remedy can be found. To PRESERVE   To receive attention, letters and orders must
HEALTH, no other mode of living can compare in all cases, be POST PAID, and directed to
with this system. In fact, were its rules ob-      FOWLERS AND WELLS,
served and carried out, many of our ills would   Clinton Hall, 131 Nassau street, New York.
be forever banished, and succeeding genera-   N. B.-The new volume commences in
tions grow up in all the vigor of true manhood. January, 1850. 9   AGEN-TS wanted.
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