[8] This was specified because it was the best material near the site.
III
CHALK
III
CHALK
[§ I.] General
Chalk, as a source of lime, has always been of high importance to builders, and, until improved transport brought alien materials into its old preserves, chalk was in general use for walling in the form of roughly squared blocks.
Chalk again forms the basis of a compost that, used in the form of a stiff paste, has been largely employed for building from the earliest times down to the present.
“Pisé de Craie,” or chalk consolidated by ramming within a casing, is a form of building that has been long held in high repute in France and elsewhere, but which has only recently been given a serious trial in England.
Chalk in all these forms, if fairly dealt with and reasonably protected from the weather, is a most amenable and satisfactory material to build with.
The last-named method particularly seems to promise results that should satisfy the most exacting critics of the unconventional, as it assuredly does those who inhabit the cottages so constructed.
The several systems of chalk construction are fully dealt with in the pages that follow.