ugh
knowledge of his job. I have seen him called up hour after hour, day and
night, on the ship, when the pumps were choked by the coal balls which
formed in the bilges, and he always arrived with a smile on his face.
Altogether he was one of our most useful men. In this job of hut-building
he was helped by two of our seamen, Keohane and Abbott, and others.
Latterly I believe there were more people working than there were
hammers!

A plan of this hut is given here. It was 50 feet long, by 25 feet wide,
and 9 feet to the eaves. The insulation, which was very satisfactory, was
seaweed, sewn up in the form of a quilt.

"The sides have double [match-] boarding inside and outside the frames,
with a layer of our excellent quilted seaweed insulation between each
pair of boardings. The roof has a single match-boarding inside, but on
the outside is a match-boarding, then a layer of 2-ply ruberoid, then a
layer of quilted seaweed, then a second match-boarding, and finally a
cover of 3-ply ruberoid."[103]

The floor consisted of a wooden boarding next the frame, then a quilt of
seaweed, then a layer of felt upon which was a second boarding and
finally linoleum.

We thought we should be warm, and we were. In fact, during the winter,
with twenty-five men living there, and the cooking range going, and
perhaps also the stove at the other end, the hut not infrequently became
fuggy, big though it was.

The entrance was through a door in a porch before you got to the main
door. In the porch were the generators of the acetylene gas, which was
fitted throughout by Day, who was also responsible for the fittings of
the ventilator, cooking range, and stove, the chimney pipes from these
running along through the middle of the hut before entering a common
vent. Little heat was lost. The pipes were fitted with dampers, and air
inlets which could be opened or shut at will to control the ventilation.
Besides a big ventilator in the top of the hut there was an adjustable
air inlet also at the base of the chamber which formed the junction of
the two chimneys. The purpose of this was also ventilation, but it was
not successful.

The bulkhead which separated the men's quarters, or mess deck, from the
rest of the hut, was formed of such cases as contained goods in glass,
including wine, which would have frozen and broken outside. The bulkhead
did not go as high as the top of the hut. When the contents of a case
were wanted, a side of the box wa