a chimney; then Figs. 271 and
273, showing the ends of the real log cabin, you will have all the steps
in the growth or evolution which has produced the American log house.

XXXII

CABIN DOORS AND DOOR-LATCHES, THUMB-LATCHES AND FOOT LATCHES AND HOW TO
MAKE THEM

PERHAPS my reader has noticed that, although many of the descriptions of
how to build the shacks, shanties, shelters, camps, sheds, tilts, and so
forth are given with somewhat minute details, little or nothing has been
said regarding the doors and door-latches. Of course we have no doors on
the open Adirondack camp, but we have passed the open camps now and are
well into cabin work, and all cabins have some sort of a door. All doors
have, or should have, some sort of a door-latch, so the doors and
door-latches have been saved for this place in the book, where they are
sandwiched between the log cabin and the log houses proper, which is
probably the best place for them. The "gummers" who collect spruce gum in
the north woods and the trappers and all of the hermit class of woodsmen
frequently come home to their little shack with their hands full of traps
or with game on their shoulders, and consequently they want to have a door
which may be opened without the necessity of dropping their load, and so
they use a foot latch.

Foot Latch

One of the simplest of the foot latches consists of a piece of wood cut
out by the aid of axe and hunting-knife to the form shown by Fig. 199; a
hole in the door cut for that purpose admits the flattened and notched
end and upon the inside it fits the round log sill. The owner of the
shack, when reaching home, steps upon the foot latch (Fig. 199), which
lifts up the catch (on the inside) and allows the door to swing open.

Trigger Latch

Fig. 200 shows a more complicated form of latch with a trigger protruding
from the lower part of the door, which is hinged to a wooden shaft, and
the shaft in turn is connected with the latch. The fastenings of the
trigger to the shaft and the shaft to the latch are made with hardwood
pegs or wire nails which move freely in their sockets. The latch is the
simplest form of a wooden bar fastened at one end with a screw or nail on
which it can move up and down freely; the other end is allowed to drop
into the catch. The latch itself is similar to the one shown in Figs. 193
and 194. The trigger is also fastened to a block on the outside of the
door by a nail or peg upon which it move