The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Completion of two farmhouses; -- a lake; -- the beast with a bill.

The trees that I had chosen for the construction of my farm were for the most part one foot in diameter; their growth was tolerably regular in the form of a parallelogram with its longest side to the sea, the length being twenty four feet, and the breadth sixteen. I cut little hollow places or mortices in the trunks, at the distance of ten feet one above the other, to form two stories; the upper one I made a few inches shorter before than behind, that the roof might be in some degree shelving: I then inserted beams five inches in diameter respectively in the mortices, and thus formed the skeleton of my building. We next nailed some laths from tree to tree, at equal distances from each other, to form the roof, and placed on them, in mathematical order, a covering composed of pieces of the bark of trees cut into the shape of tiles, and in a sloping position for the rain to run off in the wet season. As we had no great provision of iron nails, we used for the purpose the strong pointed thorn of the acacia, which we had discovered the day before. This tree, which bears an elegant flower, is known by the name of "Acacia with three thorns," and it in reality exhibits, growing all together, three strong sharp-pointed thorns, which might easily be used as weapons of defence. We cut down a quantity of them and laid them in the sun to dry, when they became as hard as iron, and were of essential service to our undertaking. We found great difficulty in peeling off a sufficient quantity of bark from trees to cover our roof. I began with cutting the bark entirely round at distances of about two feet all the length of the trunk; I next divided the intervals perpendicularly into two parts, which I separated from the tree by sliding a wedge under the corners to raise the bark by degrees; I next placed the pieces on the ground, with stones laid on them to prevent their curving, to dry in the sun; and lastly, I nailed them on the roof, where they had the appearance of the scales of fishes -- an effect that was not only pleasing to the eye, but reminded us of the roofs of our native land.