CLASS HOUSES.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 11, 5 February 1907, Page 7

CLASS HOUSES.

BUILDING MATERIAL YOU’D NEVER THINK OF. At Netloy you can soo a whole town built of nothing but paper. There are forty-live of these paper buildings, with accomodation for fully live hundred men, and they wera erected for the use of convalescents during the Boer War. Paper buildings are becoming more and more common every year. There aru several paper bungalows along the Thames, and they are warm, dry, and very comfortable. Perth, the capital of Western Australia, has a row of paper houses, which let for a pound a week. The largest and most costly paper house in existence is one belonging to a. Russian gentleman at Savinowka, in Padolia. It was imported practically ready made from New York, and cost about 118,000. It is fireproof, and furnished almost entirely with papier-mache, furniture which resembles fine ebony, but is much, lighter. It is said that the Emperor of Corea is having a paper palace built at Seoul. Its chief advantage will be that it will be earthquake proof. Architects {-.ell us that the days of brick and stone and mortar are numbered. All these, materials are heavy and cumbrous to a degree, and entail an immense and unnecessary amount of labour, Worse, they are extremely porous, and bricks at least will take up their own. weight in water. Steel, glass, and paper will be the material of future dwellings. The form in which glass will be employed is in bricks of ceramo crystal. In ,tbi's form glass is harder than granite), aw! not brittle. It is lighter and less o)#ensivo than bricks, is absolutely, watertight, and capable of being coloured to any desired tint. The possibilites of ceramo crystal were deraonr&ratod at the Paris Exhibition od 1900. There was exhibited a palace id glass, with a staircase composed ol blocks of crystal glass. The effect (.* night, was extremely fine, Another n.j-dst exquisitely beautiful building wap seen a few years ago at Salt Lake t'Jity. It was a palace of pure salt, apparently all in one piece. The method of its construction was most ingenious. A framework of lumber was erected, the surface of which was coated with certain chemicals. Then brine was pumped out of the Groat Salt Lake and sprayed byline hose nozzles over the woodwork. As the water evaporated the salt dried solid on the wood. The objection to salt as a building material is that it won't stand rain. So the Salt Lake palace was naturally a temporary structure, meant to last only during the dry season. At the National Exposition at Toronto, Canada, was to be seen a good-sized building camposed entirely, of hay. Baled hay was used, and was cut into blocks, and built up just like stone. Inside was a great exhibition of wheat, maize, and other grains of the great North-West. Just as Canada lives by hay and grain, so the chief source od Australia’s wealth is wool. To commemorate this fact, a magnificent arch of wool spanned one of the Melbourne streets on the occasion of the inauguration of the Commonwealth. Seven thousand pounds worth of baled wool went to make this arch, which was decorated with rams’ heads and flags, and a great inscription : "Welcome to the Land of the Golden Fleece." The walls of tho newest bank vaults in London are being constructed with the oddest materials imaginable—namely, old-fashioned, globular cannon-balls bedded in cement. The idea is that the tools of burglars will slip upon the rounded iron surfaces, making it impossible for them to pick through the walls. Horseshoes and bones are among the most peculiar building materials to be seen in this country. Near Arnesbury there is a forge, the entrance to which is composed entirely of old horseshoed. There are over two tons of them, all of which hare been collected by the patient blacksmith. A floor made entirely of deer bones can be seen in a summer-house in Belton Park, Grantham, Earl Brownlow’s property.