HOUSE ANT. See RED ANT.
a combination of boat and house, used largely as pleasure craft on rivers, canals and lakes in Great Britain, the United States and other parts of the world. While palatial house-boats were used by Roman em perors and have been in continuous use in China since early times, the house-boat of modern days first appeared in England about 1860. It was transplanted to this country late in the 19th century, and at first found favor with only a select few; but as soon as its ad vantages became manifest it began to develop rapidly and advanced to a remarkable state of perfection. A Mouse-boat' is not a boat with two, three or four decks and a number of staterooms, but a commodious, comfortable craft arranged for the accommodation of a family party, a company of bachelors or any suggestible combination of people. It might be likened to a suite of apartments afloat.
The house-boat in England has been par ticularly a Thames attraction and is seen to the best advantage at Henley. There are several hundred of these floating houses on the water of the Thames. The price of a house-boat ranges from $300 to $25,000. But a comfortable craft, containing saloon, kitchen and four bed rooms may be purchased for $2,000. The Thames season lasts from June to September and is at its height in July and August. A paper published once a week chronicles the daily movements of each boat. A large house boat may be hired for the season, including Henley, for $1,000.
In the United States the house-boat is seen to best advantage on the waters of Florida and during the summer months on the Hudson River, the Saint Lawrence River and Long Island Sound. The American vessels are larger than the English boats and more expensive. They are constructed on approved plans, and contain every possible comfort and convenience that may be found in the best equipped dwelling or suite of apartments ashore. There are spacious sleeping-rooms, larger than the state rooms on ocean steamers, a cosy sitting-room, a parlor, a library, a reception-room, all the necessary storerooms, a lavatory, a cook's galley and, in fact everything that a well-ordered household might demand. The properly con structed houseboat has a promenade deck and a high rail encloses it so that children may play about the deck with the utmost freedom and safety. The more pretentious are lighted with
gas supplied from a naphtha gas-making ma chine, or electric light, with the energy supplied by storage batteries.
The great charm of the house-boat is the power that its occupants possess to move it from one place to another. On dry land when a man or a family does not fancy a place he or they move away and leave the house behind. On the house-boat they take their house along with them, and they can go wherever navigable water exists. The boat can be anchored in mid stream or moored to a pier. No persons can interfere with the privacy of those on board. It is their own floating castle. When they are tired of one place they can go to another, and they have the advantage over their land-living friends that they not only take their house along, but all their belongings, and without the aid of the baggage master.
A typical American house-boat is the Idler, owned by a New York gentleman and used about Alexandria Bay, in the Saint Lawrence River. The cabin has a dozen or more windows of goodly size; there is a saloon and opening from it a dining-room. The kitchen, store rooms and quarters for a servant or two are °aft?' The promenade deck has hammocks, steamer chairs, camp stools, rugs, tables, books, work baskets and flowers; here the family live, for three-quarters of the time is spent on the boat. Among other well-known house-boats on the Saint Lawrence are the Nydia, Mavis, River God, Bohemia, Amaryllis, Merrivale and Summerholme.
On the Mississippi River, Ohio River and other large streams to the Western States the house-boat is utilized for business as well as for pleasure, and floating grocery stores, photo graph galleries and dry goods and notion shops are not uncommon. There is on the Mississippi at least one floating theatre built on the house boat plan, and hundreds of small families have adopted a rudely constructed inexpensive type of boat for permanent residences. Consult Hunt, A. B., 'House Boats and House Boating) (New York 1905).