carried up to the open air. Care should likewise be taken that the floor in the basement story is raised above the soil, and that air is freely admitted to circulate between the soil and the floor, whether that floor is of wood or stone. Where this is properly attended to, these low rooms may be used as sleeping-rooms; but where it is not, they are by no means fit or proper for any human being to sleep in.

Stability, light, and air are three grand desiderata in every house, and should be particularly attended to in the choice of one. The roof is a part of a house which should be carefully examined; for if it be badly constructed (too common a case with the houses built on speculation, both in London and the country), with narrow gutters, and those difficult of access, you may generally expect the wet to penetrate to the upper rooms after any heavy fall of snow or rain. Many of the best houses built in London are covered with lead: this is the best covering. The next is slate, if of good quality, and with wide lead gutters with lead flushings (strips of lead covering joints) to them, and to those parts of the walls which are carried up higher than the slating. Zinc-covered roofs seldom keep out the wet many years; and tiles in London are now rarely used, except in very inferior houses.

In your choice of a house, having satisfied yourself that the site on which it is built is healthy; the drainage good; the roof properly constructed, and free of access, not merely for the purpose of keeping out the wet, but as a safeguard and means of escape in case of fire; the next portion of the building to examine is the substance of the walls, with the materials of which they are composed. The soft, half-burnt bricks, called place bricks by the builders, ought never to be employed in the walls of any building which it is desirable to keep dry. Whenever these bricks are found in the foundation of the party walls, the house should be rejected; and if they are seen in the outside of any of the external walls, you may expect every beating rain which falls to penetrate into them. Such walls suck in the water like a sponge, and give it out to all the interior fittings-up and finishings. Sound, hard, well-burnt bricks, called stocks, are the strongest, most durable, and best calculated to resist the weather, and to keep the inside of a house dry, provided the mortar used with them is composed of fresh-burnt stone lime and sharp road grit or sand, and is well mixed. The stock bricks absorb but little moisture, and that little is soon evaporated; whereas the place or soft bricks absorb a large quantity of moisture, and, allowing that to pass through them into the middle of the wall, are a long time wet; because the centre of a wall retains the moisture long after the surface is dry. It is particularly desirable, as I have before stated, for the wall of

houses built on clay, or on any moist soil, to have a few courses of the brickwork above the ground laid in Roman cement.

The timber used in any building should be timber of slow growth, such as the fir of cold climates (Norway or Sweden, for example), or oak. If for work under or near the ground, the oak should be of English growth; but the American oak may be used with propriety above ground. Oak is the only timber fit for joists and sleepers (joists laid on the tops of dwarf walls) next the ground, unless the soil is particularly dry, and the floor well ventilated.

The strength of the joists and other timbers, of which the several floors are composed, is another subject of importance to every one about to take a lease of a house. If these are weak, they will necessarily shake if the tenant allows his friends to enjoy the delightful recreation of dancing on them; and though the floors may not absolutely give way, yet I have known the ceiling and cornices of many modern houses, from this cause amongst others, very unceremoniously desert their posts, and pay their respects to the floor of the room they were intended to crown. This is an accident much to be deprecated, especially as it is very likely to happen (as it did at the house of a friend of mine) at a time of all others the most annoying, viz. when you have friends with you, and are in the highest spirits, little anticipating such an event. The floors in houses of the first and second class of buildings are usually pugged (filled in, between the floor of one room and the ceiling of that below it, with mortar, &c.), to destroy sound, and as a security against fire: when this is not done, it is an unpardonable omission on the part of the builder, as the expense is small, and the benefit great. All the partitions of a house should, if possible, be brick walls. At all events, no timber partitions ought to be admitted in the basement or lower story of any house, nor in any of the upper stories, except where, from the arrangement of the rooms, the partitions on the upper floors cannot be placed perpendicularly over the lower partitions; even in this case the timber partitions ought to be trussed up so as to rest their weight upon the side walls. All timber partitions should be filled in with brick nogging. If this were universally done, and the party and other walls and partitions plastered, so as to prevent all draughts of air, it would tend more to check the progress of fire than any other mode of construction: indeed, I think, if you were to make a fire on the floor of a room so constructed, it would burn itself out, without communicating with the timber partition; or, at all events, so little would be the tendency of the fire to spread (for want of a current of air), that a very moderate application of water would put it out. But where the floors are pugged with mortar, care must be taken that the timbers are well seasoned

and dried, and not taken, as is customary, even in some of our largest buildings, wet out of the Thames, sawed, and fixed, and closed up in the building in a few weeks; reeking with wet, and exuding moisture at their extremities after the weight of the superincumbent walls is put on them. The dry rot and premature decay are the frequent consequences of this careless and ignorant mode of building.

The particular character of houses in towns is, that they are many stories high, having generally one story in the basement, wholly or partially below the general surface of the ground: over this is a ground, or parlour, floor; a one-pair, or drawingroom, floor; a two-pair, or best bedroom, floor; and an attic floor. This is the general arrangement; but many houses have other attics, or garrets, above these in the roof. This arises from the high price of the ground in towns, and may be excusable in great thoroughfares, where shops let at a high rent; for even if the landlord were desirous of giving his tenant a wide frontage, to enable him to have two rooms in front, and some space behind, it would most likely be divided by the tenant, and underlet. A serious evil, however, arises from the great landed proprietors round London allowing the ground to be divided and subdivided by speculating builders or agents, so that there is now scarcely a house built with a yard large enough to dry a few clothes in; a garden is out of the question, except in some few instances, and those are far between. This is a subject worthy of the attention of the legislature; and some restraints should be imposed on landlords, particularly as to drainage and roads. If, before a landlord could dispose of his land for building purposes, he were compelled to engage to form the roads and footpaths next to his intended houses to the satisfaction of the parish, or some other authority; the sewers to the satisfaction of the commissioners of sewers; and to see that good and sufficient drains from every house were built; a penalty being incurred, if any house on his estate should be inhabited before an effectual drainage were formed, it would tend very much to the health and comfort of the middle class of society, and the poor especially.

The restraint imposed by the Building Act has, in the neighbourhood of London, tended much to produce a kind of house, called a fourth-rate house; and the smallest of these are built, principally for the occupation of the poor, in the suburbs of London, in inferior situations. These houses consist of two rooms; they have generally from 12 ft. to 14 ft. frontage, and are from 12 ft. to 14 ft. deep, having an access on the ground floor in front into the lower room, and steps outside at the back leading into the upper room. Three, four, or more have a yard and other conveniences in common. Dwellings of this description

are rarely properly drained or ventilated, and therefore form nurseries for the cholera and all other diseases. They are usually let at from 3s. to 4s. per week each room.

There are some houses of this class presenting a very decent appearance, and occupied by respectable tradesmen and mechanics, having about 15 ft. wide in front by 23 ft. deep, with a basement story, cellars and wash-house, a parlour floor of two small rooms, a drawing-room floor over, and two bedrooms over that, which generally let for from 251. to 40l. a year rent, according to the number of rooms they contain, and the conveniences they afford. The back room on the two-pair floor of a house of this description is obliged, by the Building Act, to be curbed (contracted by being carried up into the roof), which spoils the room; and the gutters are frequently so narrow at the bottom of the curb, that they convey the water into, rather than off, the house.

The next class of town house, according to the Building Act, is the third-rate house, which is from about 17 ft. to 18 ft. wide in front, and from 28 ft. to 29 ft. deep. Houses of this class generally contain the same number of rooms as the largest size fourthrate, with an attic story over in addition: this story is sometimes partly in the roof, but more generally the walls are carried up to allow the rooms to be square. At the back of the parlour floor there is frequently built a small room, used as a dressingroom or store-room. These houses have generally two windows in the width of their front.

The next class of house, the second-rate, is of a better and larger description, and frequently possesses conveniences that cause it to be occupied by the wealthy tradesman and gentleman of good fortune. It is usually 20 ft. or 30 ft. wide in front, by 30 ft. to 40 ft. deep, with additional rooms at the back. It can, and does, in many instances, contain all the apartments required by a family keeping their carriage, footmen, housekeeper, &c.; and has attached to it, or in some mews in the immediate neighbourhood, a coach-house and stable. These houses are usually built with two windows in the width of the front, but many of them have three windows in this width. The rooms are higher and better finished than in the houses of the third and fourth classes.

The first-rate class of buildings embraces all houses containing more than 900 superficial feet on the ground-floor, and includes the residences of the nobility and gentry, and the wealthiest class of professional men and merchants. Houses of this class may be said to be unrestricted as to size, either in height or width; the other classes are, by the Building Act, restricted as to dimensions in their plan, their height, and expense; though the

height and expense of a house are not now taken into consideration in deciding the rate or class to which it belongs.

A new Building Act is drawn up, and approved, which, it is expected, will pass into a law next year; and it is greatly to be hoped that in this new law the absurdities of the present act will be avoided. I. J. KENT.

Manor Place, Paddington, Nov. 16. 1833.

ART. IV. On rendering Lath and Plaster Partitions Fireproof. By THOMAS WILKINSON, Esq.

Sir,

IN your Encyclopædia of Architecture, you have suggested a very efficient mode of rendering hollow partitions solid by blowing in, if I may use the expression, powder of Roman cement and steam. It occurred to me, when I read that part of your work, that the difficulty and expense of this operation would prevent it from being generally adopted; and, having built a house of eight rooms on four stories, with a wooden staircase between, I felt not a little alarmed at the danger from fire which I was exposed to on the one hand (which I had never thought of till you pointed it out), and the trouble and expense of rendering a house fireproof on the other. After thinking on the subject for several days, and talking to my carpenter (Mr. John Brown of this place), we fortunately hit on the idea of removing the skirtings, both in the rooms and on the staircase, then filling in the space in the partition behind them with plaster, and replacing them. By this process, I have rendered my partitions what, for all practical purposes, may be considered fireproof; since, supposing the skirting-boards to take fire either on the staircase or in any of the rooms, it is evident that they could not communicate flame to the vacuity of the partition; or, supposing that, by any means whatever, the hollow part of the partitions were set fire to, it is evident the flames could not, at least for a long time, spread from one floor to another.

I assure you, Sir, that, after I perused that part of your work which treats of rendering houses fireproof, and particularly § 1790. and § 1791., I was filled with the greatest alarm, because my wooden staircase is four stories high, without an outlet to the roof, without a window communicating with a balcony, as you recommend, and with hollow lath and plaster partitions on each side; but now that I have filled in all solid behind the skirtings, I feel comparatively at ease, and though certainly not so secure as if I had solid brick partitions, yet I am confident that no fire could happen in my house that would spread so rapidly as to prevent the means of escape. Before I made this improvment,