Ned,
Last December I saw small houses the walls of which are made of "mud"
(actually probably a daub-like mixture of clay, sand, cow dung, etc.) in
south Indian villages (near Chennai, formerly Madras). There is no
question in my mind that this area is at least as humid, rainy, & wet as
Delaware.
The roofs were thatch, at least if the owner isn't affluent (metal or
tile if they are) and were supported by posts at the corners. The walls
are free standing and somewhat protected by the roof overhang. However,
in a particularly rainy year (i.e., 1997, El Nino??), they can and will
collapse and need rebuilding.
Christopher Murphy
History & Anthropology
Augusta State University
Ned Heite wrote:
>
> This morning, I was reading the 1804 assessment for Mill Creek Hundred, New
> Castle County, Delaware, when I saw something startling, to say the least.
> Most of the houses in the hundred were stone, or log, or sometimes brick.
> Three were listed as mud-walled. What is a mud-walled house doing in
> temperate, humid, rainy, wet New Castle County in 1804. In all three cases,
> the inhabitants of these mud-walled houses were substantial, one of them a
> farmer with more than 200 acres.
>
> Turf or sod springs to mind. How else can one intepret this?
>
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> Ned Heite, Camden, DE http://home.dmv.com/~eheite/index.html
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