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Dividing his men into squads, he had been carrying out the policy of simultaneous preparation, and while part of his men had been getting the plates to their places, others had been making ready the "purlines" and laying the rafters in order so that, although beaten by Rory in the initial stages of the struggle, when once his plates were in position, while Rory's men were rushing about in more or less confusion after their rafters, Barney's purlins and rafters moved to their positions as if by magic.

The rafters are laid at an angle of about forty degrees and at intervals of eighteen inches; they are lashed to the ridge-timber and to the purlins, and lipped on to the roof-plates, beyond which they project about four feet to form an cave. Strong flat strips or laths are laid along the rafters parallel to the length of the house at intervals of about sixteen inches.

Conquistadores: Spanish soldiers engaged in the conquest of America. Eye-bonder: A narrow, rough ashlar in one end of which a chamfered hole has been cut. Usually about 2 feet long, 6 inches wide, and 2 inches thick, it was bonded into the wall of a gable at right angles to its slope and flush with its surface. To it the purlins of the roof could be fastened.

By this time each joint of the latter has been numbered and given its color code. With a simple derrick and ropes and pulleys, dismembering the frame commences. The pins that make the joints tight are removed by driving or boring. Roof rafters and purlins come first; then the yard arms that brace plate and summer beams, followed by these timbers themselves.

Many old vicars are buried within this cloister. The roof is of oak, the wall-plates, purlins, and rafters are richly moulded and the tie-beams and principals are richly carved on both sides with various patterns and devices. The Rev. F. Havergal says:—"The late William Cooke acquired an immense amount of information relating to the college and the vicars in olden time.

The roof is 64.520 meters wide and 14.628 meters high; and its total weight is 103.300 kilos. for the ironwork representing a weight of 31.6 kilos. per square meter of surface. It is proposed to employ for its covering wooden purlins and tin plates. The whole construction has a light, pleasing, and yet thoroughly solid appearance.

The ridge-timber and purlins, though less heavy than the roof-plates, consist also of stout squared timbers, spliced to form beams continuous throughout the whole length of the house.

This design is for a Cold Grapery of low cost. The object contemplated is to secure a house that shall answer the purpose intended, and be a complete working house in all its parts, without unnecessary expense. The ridge and purlins are supported by light 2x3 inch posts, which rest upon larger posts beneath the ground. This is a considerable saving, both in material and workmanship.

The former inhabitants of this mansion had, it seems, been content without a chimney: and, indeed, almost without a roof; the couples and purlins of the roof having once given way, had never been repaired, and swagged down by the weight of the thatch, so that the ends threatened the wigs of the unwary.

I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing, as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trap-door, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without stamping.