In order to ensure protection from the rain spread one waterproof covering or poncho on the ground using half underneath so that the upper half may be folded over the head in case of rain. Put blankets _under_ as well as _over_ you, and a second waterproof covering over the blankets. Clothing When living out of doors, one may make shift for shelter, or even go hungry for a space, but there is no substitute for comfortable clothing that is safe to use if one would keep well. Horace Kephart, the master camper, devotes much space to this subject, and we can do no better than to follow his advice from Camping and Woodcraft. "* * * One soon learns that the difference between comfort and misery, if not health and illness, may depend on whether he is properly clad. Proper, in this case does not mean modish, but suitable, serviceable, proven by the touchstone of experience to be best for the work or play that is in hand. When you seek a guide in the mountains, he looks first in your eyes and then at your shoes. If both are right, you are right. "The chief uses of clothing are to help the body maintain its normal temperature and to protect it from sun, frost, wind, rain and injuries. _To help_, mind you--the body must be allowed to do its share. "Perspiration is the heat-regulating mechanism of the body. Clothing should hinder its passage from the skin as little as possible. For this reason one's garments should be _permeable_ to air. The body is cooled by rapid evaporation, on the familiar principle of a tropical water bag that is porous enough to let some of the water exude. So the best summer clothing is that which permits free evaporation--and this means all over, from head to heel. In winter it is just the same, there should be free passage for bodily moisture through the underclothes, but extra layers or thickness of outer clothing are needed to hold in the bodily heat and to protect one against wind; even so all the garments should be permeable to air. * * *" "Underclothing, for any season, should be loosely woven, so as to hold air and take up moisture from the body. The air confined in the interspaces is a non-conductor, and so helps to prevent sudden chilling on the one hand, and over-heating on the other. A loose texture absorbs perspiration but does not hold it--the moisture is free to pass on to and through the outer garments. In town we may indure close woven underwear in summer, if thin enough, because we exercise little and can bathe and change frequently. In the woods we would have to change four times a day to keep * * * as dry. "_Wool versus Cotton_--Permeability also depends upon material. Ordinary cotton and linen goods do not permit rapid evaporation. They absorb moisture from the skin, but hold it up to the limit of saturation. Then, when they can hold no more, they are clammy, and the sweat can only escape by running down one's skin.