_The Pitch of Roofs._—From observation of the effects produced by earthquakes, it appears to us that the houses which lost the greater number of tiles appear to be those with the steepest pitch, and those where the tiles were simply laid upon the roof and not in any manner fastened down. It would seem that destruction of this sort might to a great extent be obviated by giving the roofs a less inclination and fixing the tiles with nails. It was also noticed that the greatest disturbance amongst the tiles was upon the ridges of the roofs. Destruction of this sort might be overcome by giving especial attention to these portions during the construction of the roof. [Illustration: FIG. 20. FIG. 21.] _Relative Position of Openings in Walls._—From what has been said about the fractures in the buildings of Tokio it will have been seen that, with but few exceptions, they have all taken place above openings like doorways and windows. If architecture demands that openings like arches should be placed one above another in heavy walls of this kind, as in fig. 17, there will be lines of weakness running through the openings parallel to the dotted lines. As arches are only intended to resist vertical thrusts, special construction must be adopted to make them strong enough to resist horizontal pulls. For instance, a flat arch would offer more resistance to horizontal pulls than an arch put together with ordinary voussoirs, there being in the former case more friction to prevent the component parts sliding over each other. Or again, above each arch an iron girder or wooden lintel might be inserted in the brick or stone arch. It was suggested to me by my colleague, Mr. Perry, that the best form calculated to give a wall uniform strength, would be to build it so that the openings of each tier would occupy alternate positions, that is to say, along lines parallel to the struts and ties of a girder. In this way we should have our materials so arranged that they would offer the same resistance to horizontal as to vertical movements. Such a wall is shown in fig. 20: the dotted lines running through the openings, and all similar lines parallel to the former, representing lines of weakness. If we compare this with fig. 21, we shall see that in the case of a horizontal movement _a_ _b_ or of a vertical movement _c_ _d_, we should rather expect to find fractures in a house built like fig. 21 than in one built like fig. 20. If, however, these two buildings were shaken by a shock which had an angle of emergence of about 45° in the direction _e_ _f_, the effects might be reversed. Usually, however, and always in a town like Tokio which is visited by shocks originating at a distance, the movements are practically horizontal ones, and, therefore, buildings erected on the principles illustrated by fig. 20 should be much superior, so far as resisting earthquakes is concerned, to buildings constructed in the ordinary manner, as in fig. 21. Fractures