possible, so as
to adapt it to the ordinary miner, mill operator and prospector, many
of whom have had no scientific training. Some of the expedients are
original devices educed by what we are told is the mother of inventions;
others are hints given by practical old prospectors who had met with
difficulties which would be the despair of a man brought up within reach
of forge, foundry, machine shop, or tradesmen generally. There are many
highly ingenious and useful contrivances besides these I have given.

LIVING PLACES

The health of the prospector, especially in a new country, depends
largely on his housing--in which particular many men are foolishly
careless, for although they are aware that they will be camped out for
long periods, yet all the shelter they rely on is a miserable calico
tent, often without a "fly," while in some cases they sometimes even
sleep on the wet, or dusty, ground. Such persons fully deserve the ill
health which sooner or later overtakes them. A little forethought and
very moderate ingenuity would render their camp comparatively healthy
and comfortable.

In summer the tent is the hottest, and in winter the coldest of
domiciles. The "pizie" or "adobie" hut, or, where practicable, the
"dugout," are much to be preferred, especially the latter. "Pizie" or
"adobie" is simply surface soil kneaded with water and either moulded
between boards like concrete, to construct the walls, or made into large
sun-dried bricks. Salt water should not be used, as it causes the wall
to be affected by every change of weather. A properly constructed house
of this material, where the walls are protected by overhanging eaves,
are practically everlasting, and the former have been standing for
centuries. There are buildings of pizie or adobie in Mexico, California
and Australia which are as good as new, although the latter were built
nearly a century ago.

Adobie dwellings are warm in winter and cool in summer, and can be kept
clean and healthy by occasional coatings of lime whitewash.

The dugout is even more simple in construction. A cutting, say ten feet
wide, is put into the base of a hill for say twelve feet until the back
wall is, say, ten feet high, the sides starting from nothing to that
height. The front and such portion as is required of the side walls are
next constructed of pizie or rough stone, with mud mortar, and the roof
either gabled or skillion of bough, grass, or reed thatch, and covered
with pi