OUR HOMES.
A long time ago people did not have beautiful homes. Then all the people on the earth were rude and savage. They wandered from place to place for food, and were like animals in many ways.
What sort of homes do you suppose these sav age people had? They spent hardly as much time upon their shelters as the birds do upon their nests. Some of them lived in caves which they found in the rocks. Others built rude huts of bark or reeds to protect them from the cold and rain.
People chose places to live where they would be safe from the wild animals. They had also to defend themselves in their fights with each other.
Then hunting and fishing was the chief occupa tion of the people, and they had to go where there was game to be found. When they discovered that they could raise grain and vegetables they did not move so much. Staying longer in one place they built better homes.
Everything is quite different now. A part of the people upon the earth have become civilized. Many of us have never seen savages or Indians.
We live in houses which have cost much money and work. Lumber and stone and iron are used.
We do not have to move from one place to another to get enough to eat. People who live far apart exchange goods with each other. Things which we need we go to the store and buy. We do not have to travel hundreds of miles to get them.
We build our homes for protection from the weather. We fill them with all sorts of things. Some of these are to be used. Others are to make our homes beautiful. We do not fear wild animals now. We do not fear the attacks of savages.
Let us find out something more about the materials that our homes are made of. Where there
are many trees sawmills are put up to cut the logs into boards. Where there are no sawmills the houses are made of logs. The roof is often made of the bark of trees.
Where there are no trees, or lumber to be had, the houses are made of stone or adobe. There are many kinds of stone. It is quarried out of the earth.
Adobe bricks are made by mixing clay and chopped straw. This material is pressed into molds and then left in the sun to dry. The red bricks which you have seen are made by baking a mixture of sand and clay. The roofs of adobe houses are often made of brush on which mud is spread. This does not keep out the rain very well.
Did you ever see a sod house? Square pieces of grass sod are cut and piled up like bricks. A dugout is a house made partly in the ground.
What would you think of a house made of salt? Away in the desert of eastern California there is a neat little cabin built of blocks of rock salt.
The Indians of North America lived in wigwams, rude structures made of the skins of animals or of the barks of the trees of the forests.
In the far North the Eskimos in the winter build their homes of snow, as the best material to keep out the cold. In fact, climate and suitable material has, even in the most civilized countries, much to do with the style of building adopted. Flat roofs or no rook at all are preferred in lands where no rain falls, as in parts of Egypt and India; slightly sloping roofs where rain but no snow falls, and high pitched roofs, to shed the snow, are common in all Northern lands.