aking a
thick mattress of twigs and sticks as shown by Fig. 70. This mattress acts
on the principle of a snow-shoe and prevents your house from sinking by
distributing the weight equally over a wide surface. The mattress should
be carefully made of sticks having their branches trimmed off sufficiently
to allow them to lie in regular courses as in the diagram. The first
course should be laid one way and the next course at right angles to the
first, and so on, until the mattress is sufficiently thick for the
purpose.

Standing on the mattress, it will be an easy matter with your hands to
force the sharpened ends of your upright posts _A_, _B_, _C_, and _D_ down
into the yielding mud, but be careful not to push them too far because in
some of these marshes the mud is practically bottomless. It is only
necessary for the supports to sink in the mud far enough to make them
stand upright.

Fig. 71.

[Illustration: Framework of simple bog ken.]

The next step is to lay, at right angles to the top layer of brush, a
series of rods or poles between your uprights as shown in Fig. 70; then
take two more poles, place them at right angles to the last ones, and
press them down until they fit snugly on top of the other poles, and there
nail them fast to the uprights as shown in Fig. 70, after which to further
bind them you may nail a diagonal from _A_ to _D_ and _B_ to _C_, but this
may not be necessary.

When you have proceeded thus far you may erect a framework like that shown
in Fig. 71, and build a platform by flooring the crosspieces or horizontal
bars with halves of small logs, Fig. 71.

It is now a simple matter to erect a shack which may be roofed with bark
as in Fig. 72 or thatched as in Fig. 74. Fig. 72 shows the unfinished
shack in order that its construction may be easily seen; this one is being
roofed with birch bark. A fireplace may be made by enclosing a bed of mud
(Fig. 73) between or inside of the square formed by four logs. On this
clay or mud you can build your camp-fire or cooking fire or mosquito
smudge with little or no danger of setting fire to your house.

The mosquito smudge will not be found necessary if there is any breeze
blowing at all, because these insects cling to the salt hay or bog-grass
and do not rise above it except in close, muggy weather where no breeze
disturbs them. I have slept a few feet over bog meadows without being
disturbed by mosquitoes when every blade of grass on the meadows was