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Page 7 TURRETS, BAYS AND TOWERS Because many of the wet, wintry days of my early childhood were spent in what was called "the shack", I like to think that I knew my way around a shingling axe before I learned my ABCs. "The shack" was a special world - a world of hammers and saws, of fine finishing nails and coarse sandpaper and, occasionally, one of forbidden paint brushes uncleaned and hidden away under piles of wood shavings. With that background in mind, you'll understand why, when I came across a book called "Modern Carpentry - A Practical Manual", it caught my eye and held my attention. The book was written by one Fred T. Hodgson, Architect and his PREFACE reads: "This little book is sent out with a certainty that the one and a half million of men and boys who earn their living by working wood, and fashioning it for useful or ornamental purposes, will appreciate it, because of its main object, which is to lessen their labors by placing before them the quickest and most approved methods of construction." (A grasp of Euclid's "Elements" would be helpful.) Part I deals with Carpenter's Geometry - the circle, tangents, degrees, polygons and octagons, ellipses, spirals, ovals cycloidal curves and The Parabola and Its Uses. Instead of Practical Examples, an appropriate title for Part II might have been Arches, Anyone? ... segmental, flat, horseshoe, lintel, elliptical, lancet, four centered and ogee. Part III is devoted to Joiner's Work and is a veritable treasure trove of alliteration and onomatopoeia. Never mind what the words mean. Just listen to them and let them roll off your tongue - housed hopper cuts and cluster columns; kerfing on a rake; and gore for conical roof; Gothic Soffits; Blind Dovetailing and Dog-legged stairs. There's even a Bending Block for Splayed Heads -nothing to do with the adventures of Mistress Anne Boleyn. Part IV covers Useful Tables and Memoranda for Builders. There are pages and pages of tables - everything from the capacity of cisterns for each 10 inches of depth to the number of nails and tacks per pound. One table sets out the Number of Nails Required in Carpentry Work: To case and hang one door, 1 pound To case and hang one window, 3/4 pound To put on rafters, joists etc., 3 pounds to 1000 feet. To put up studding, same. Okay, let's case and hang one window. We'll probably use 3 inch, 10 penny, fine nails. At 60 nails to the pound, that works out to be 45 nails. Anyone who's ever renovated an old house will swear that the builder followed Fred Hodgson's formula! The guidelines for masonry were equally as detailed: An average of 6 bushels of sand and cement per perch of rubble masonry. A cord of stone, 3 bushels of lime and a cubic yard of sand, will lay 100 cubic feet of wall, etc. The book contains a wonderful house plan supplement - "Perspective Views and Floor Plans of Fifty Low and Medium Priced Houses". "The regular price of these plans, when ordered in the usual manner, is from $50.00 to $75.00 per set, while our charge is but $5.00, at the same time furnishing them to you more complete and better bound." The quotes for the houses ran from $400 - $3,400, according to the locality in which they were built, and were exclusive of plumbing and heating. Bedrooms are often referred to as chambers; livingrooms as parlors. Most kitchens have a pantry, and separate diningrooms are the norm. Sometimes, there's a study and usually, at least one porch. Thirty-three of the houses have names; the rest are numbered. Now, for an abridged guided tour of homes of yesteryear.