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Page 16
[Illustration: A DORMER OF BURNED CLAY.]
"I supposed air spaces were necessary for warmth and dryness," said
Jill.
"So they are. But there are air spaces in a woolen blanket, in a
brickbat and in common mortar, as well as in sawdust, ashes and
powdered charcoal, quite enough to serve as non-conductors of heat and
of moisture too, if properly protected. One of the best and most
available materials at present known for this purpose is 'mineral
wool,' a product of iron 'slag.' If the open spaces between the studs
and rafters of a wooden building (or in a brick building between the
furrings) are filled with this substance, or anything else equally
good, if there is anything else--of course sawdust or other
inflammable material would not answer except for an ice-house or a
water-tank--'fire-bugs' would find it difficult to follow their
profession with any success, and the insurance companies would build
more elegant offices and declare larger dividends than ever before.
Houses might be burned possibly, but the inmates would have ample time
to fold their nightgowns, pack their trunks, take up the carpets and
count the spoons before vacating the premises."
"How much will that sort of stuffing cost?"
"For a wooden dwelling house of medium size a few hundred dollars would
cover the first outlay, and the saving in worry would be worth twice as
much every year."
"Now to consider the relative merits of brick and wood, for I see Jack
is going to sleep again: The chief excellence of wood has already been
mentioned. It is cheap, so cheap that any man who can earn a dollar a
day and live on fifty cents, may at the end of a year, have a house of
his own in which he can live and begin to bring up a family in comfort
and safety. He that builds of bricks may rejoice in the durability and
strength of his house, in its security against fire and sudden changes
of temperature, in economy of fuel in cold weather, of ice in warm
weather, and of paint in all weathers; in the possibility of the
highest degree of external beauty, and in the blessed consciousness
that his real estate will not deteriorate on his hands or be a worn-out
and worthless legacy to his children."
"You must wear peculiar spectacles if you can discover beauty in a
square brick house!"
[Illustration: THE TOPMOST PEAK.]
"Rectitude, of which a brick is the accepted type, certainly has a
beauty of its own. But if a brick house is not beautiful--here again
the fault is not, dear Jack, in the bricks; but in ourselves, our
prejudices and our architects--other things being equal, it should be
more beautiful than a wooden house, because the material employed is
more appropriate for its use. (I should like to deliver an oration at
this point, for upon this Golden Rule of utility hang all the law and
the prophets of architectural beauty, but will defer it to a more
fitting occasion.) There is, in truth, no limit to the grace of form,
color and decoration possible with burned clay. As a marble statue is
to a wooden image, so, for the outer walls of a building, is clay that
has been moulded and baked, to the products of the saw-mill, the
planing-mill, lathe and fret-saw."
"Oh, you mean terra cotta?"
"I mean clay that has been wrought into forms of use and beauty, and
prepared by fire to endure almost to the end of time. It is most
commonly found in plain rectangular blocks, but in accordance with the
artistic spirit of the age, brains are now mixed with the sordid earth,
and lasting beauty glows upon the rich, warm face of the strong brick
walls."--
"Yea, verily, amen and amen! Beauty, eloquence and true poetry, bright
gleams of prophetic fire, patriotism, piety and the music of the
spheres. I can see them all in my mind's eye and hear them in my mind's
ear. Jill, my dear, our house shall be bricks--excuse me, I mean
_brains_--and mortar, from turret to foundation stone. Consider that
settled, and if the meeting is unanimous we will now adjourn till
to-morrow morning."
"One moment, if you please. Filling the spaces behind the lathing in a
brick house with some fireproof and non-conducting material is a
concession to usual modes of building. A more satisfactory construction
still would be to build the wails of hollow bricks and with air spaces
so disposed that neither wood furrings nor laths would be necessary.
There is, moreover, no good reason why the inner surfaces of the main
walls of a brick house and both sides of the partitions should not form
the final finish of the rooms. Glazed bricks or tiles built into the
walls, or secured to them after they are built, are vastly more
satisfactory than a fragile and incongruous patchwork of wood, leather,
metal, paper, paint and mortar, thrown together in some of the thousand
and one fantastic fashions that spring up in a day, run their little
course, and speedily return to the dust they have spent their short
lives in collecting. I am afraid to dwell on this theme lest I should
lie awake all night in a fever of futile protest."
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