s making a sheet of larger dimensions.

"A sheet formed by fastening together four knapsacks was exhibited to
the Board, stretched upon a frame of wood. When used in service the
sheet is to be stretched on a rope supported by two poles, or by two
rifles, muskets, or carbines, and pinned down at the sides with six
pins, three on each side.

"The sheet of four knapsacks is 10 feet 6 inches long, and 7 feet 4
inches wide, and when pitched on a rope 4 feet 4 inches above the
ground, covers a horizontal space 6 feet 6 inches wide, and 7 feet 4
inches long, which will accommodate five men, and may be made to
shelter seven. The sheet can also be used on the ground, and is a great
protection from dampness, and as a shawl or talma; indeed, a variety of
advantageous uses to which the gutta-percha sheet may be put will
suggest themselves to persons using it.

"The Board is satisfied with its merits in all the uses to which it is
proposed to be put, and is of opinion that the gutta-percha tent
knapsack may be adopted in the military service with advantage."

* * * * *

The usual tenement of the prairie tribes, and of the traders, trappers,
and hunters who live among them, is the Comanche lodge, which is made
of eight straight peeled poles about twenty feet long, covered with
hides or cloth. The lodge is pitched by connecting the smaller
extremities of three of the poles with one end of a long line. The
three poles are then raised perpendicularly, and the larger extremities
spread out in a tripod to the circumference of the circle that is to
form the base of the lodge. The other poles are then raised, laid into
the forks of the three first, and spread out equidistant upon the
circle, thus forming the conical framework of the structure. Nine or
ten poles are generally used in one lodge.

[Illustration: COMANCHE LODGE.]

The long line attached to the tripod is then wound several times around
the top, where the poles intersect, and the lower end made fast at the
base of the lodge, thus securing the frame firmly in its position. The
covering, made of buffalo hides, dressed without the hair, and cut and
sewed together to fit the conical frame, is raised with a pole, spread
out around the structure, and united at the edges with sharpened wooden
pegs, leaving sufficient space open at the bottom for a doorway, which
may be closed with a blanket spread out with two small sticks, and
suspended