Next I made some experiments in chalk farmyard walls. Unfortunately,
however, one of these, which was not made homogeneous by chalk mincing,
_i.e._ in which the nuggets of chalk were not properly broken up, got
the wet into it, and true to the candid friend's prophecy did literally
explode in the big frost of 1917-18. Another very pretty chalk wall is,
however, standing to this day. But though Chalk Pise will, I think, do
well if properly made and properly protected, it is somewhat of a
doubtful material for anything except a building with a good overlay of
roof. Another structure put up by me was a largish gardener's potting
shed. This was built purely of earth, and in dry weather. When the walls
were perfectly dry, the local road authorities kindly came with their
tar spray and sprayed it with hot tar, with most excellent results. The
hot tar really entered instead of merely making a skin, with the result
that the external walls thus treated resembled a section of tarred road
stood up on end.
[Illustration:
+Pise Waggon-house at Newlands Corner.+
An experiment in rendering.]
[Illustration:
+The Newlands Waggon-house.+
Interior.]
[Illustration:
+The Beginning of a Pise Fruit-house.+]
[Illustration:
+The Fruit-house Completed With Roof of Peat Blocks
on Rough Boarding.+]
I may add that I lent my Pise shuttering to a Guildford Volunteer
Battalion, who in a ten-hour day, or rather, two days of five hours
each, built an excellent hut about 20 ft. square and 10 ft. high, and
thus showed that a platoon might house themselves with Pise in a day,
provided they had roofing material ready. This building had subsequently
to be destroyed, because the ground on which it stood was wanted for
another purpose. When it was knocked down the house-breakers were
astonished at the strength and tenacity of the walls. Yet the earth out
of which they were made was particularly bad--as one of the volunteers
expressed it, not earth, but merely leaf-mould and horse-manure. The
site had, as a matter of fact, been a suburban garden for at least two
hundred years.
V
Before I leave the record of these terrestrial adventures I may note
that in the early stages I received a great deal of help and
encouragement from General Sir Robert Scott-Moncrieff. He was indeed so
much struck by them that he drew up a series of instructions for walls
of Pise work which were issued to all engineer companies at the front in
case they might have opportunities for experimenting. These instructions
were based upon the Australian book and embodied the very simple form of
shuttering there recommended. The diagram that accompanied them is
reproduced in the Appendix to the present volume.
[Headnote: Pise in Moulds]