Note 4 — COB, PISÉ, CHALK & CLAY
Reading edition
The introduction of a damp-course and the provision of gutters at the eaves greatly reduce the function of the masonry base in modern work.
5 “The pisé does not admit any vegetable or animal substances. In mud walls they put straw, chopped hay, hair, flocks, wool, etc., to make the mud adhere to the wood, or laths; whereas the workmen who build in pisé are careful to pick out the least straw or the smallest bit of root which remains in the earth: in short, the pisé is a mineral substance imitating stone, consequently anything that can slake or rot must be excluded.”
6 India.
7 “A convenient arrangement might be: to make the lower and upper connecting bars alike, to raise the side boarding a few inches above the upper bars, which, when embedded, might be allowed to remain and become the lower ones of the next course; the external apparatus being shifted by taking out the pins and slipping off the stanchions and planks to be reapplied to the upper bars already in position to receive them.”
8 This was specified because it was the best material near the site.