exotic name by which
some people humble them.

XLI

HOW TO BUILD A SUSITNA LOG CABIN AND HOW TO CUT TREES FOR THE END PLATES

STANDING on a hill overlooking the salt meadows at Hunter's Point, L. I.,
there was an old farmhouse the roof of which projected over both sides of
the house four or five feet. The hill on which it stood has been cut away,
the meadows which it overlooked have been filled up with the dirt from the
hill, and only a surveyor with his transit and the old property-lines map
before him could ever find the former location of this house, but it is
somewhere among the tracks of the Long Island Railroad.

Opposite the house, on the other side of the railroad track, in the
section known as Dutch Kills of Long Island City, two other houses of the
same style of architecture stood; they had double doors--that is, doors
which were cut in two half-way up so that you might open the top or bottom
half or both halves to suit your fancy. The upper panels of these doors
had two drop-lights of glass set in on the bias, and between them,
half-way down the upper half, was a great brass knocker with a grip big
enough to accommodate both hands in case you really wanted to make a
noise.

There was another house of this same description in the outskirts of
Hoboken, and I often wondered what the origin of that peculiar roof might
be. I found this type of house as far north toward the Hudson Bay as the
settlements go, and still farther north the Susitna house explains the
origin of the overhanging eaves (Fig. 268). Of course the Susitna, as
here drawn, is not exactly the same as that built by the natives on the
Susitna River, but the end plates (Fig. 263) are the same as those used in
the primitive houses of the Northwest.

How to Cut the Tree

Fig. 264 shows a standing fir-tree and also shows what cuts to make in
order to get the right-shaped log for an end plate. Fig. 265 shows the
method of scoring and hewing necessary in order to flatten the end of the
log as it is in Fig. 266. Fig. 267 shows the style in which the natives
roof their Susitnas with logs. The elbows at the end of the plates (Fig.
266) serve to keep the logs of the roof (Fig. 267) from rolling off, but
the Susitna log cabin which we are building is expected to have a roof
(Fig. 268) of thatch or a roof of shingles, because we have passed the
rude shacks, sheds, and shelters used for camps and are now building real
houses in which we may li