Although the gambrel roof was known in New England as early perhaps as 1670 and was, in all probability, borrowed from the Dutch, there is a wide difference in appearance between New England and Dutch gambrels. Generally speaking, the New England gambrels have the pitch from the eaves much steeper and shorter while the top pitch is longer than in the Dutch houses. In the Dutch gambrel roof, on the other hand, the steeper slope usually makes an angle of forty-five degrees, or less, and is by far the longer, while the top slope is quite short and has an angle of about 25 degrees. This difference in angle gives the Dutch gambrel roofs a rarely beautiful quality, especially when the lower end of the long slope just above the eaves was made with a kickup to avoid darkening the windows or possibly to throw the rain-water farther away from the walls. Whatever may be the origin of the gambrel,--and many ingenious theories have been suggested--whether it originated as previously suggested, to avoid the tax on two-storeyed dwellings, or whether the desire to increase the breadth of the span, by piecing out rafters, was the underlying cause, it is an exceptionally agreeable form of house covering and so closely associated with the dwellings of the Dutch Colonial period that we may properly identify it as a characteristic feature of that style. Before leaving the subject of roofs, the development of the wide-projecting eaves, as we find them in the New Jersey and some of the Dutch Long Island houses of the eighteenth century, must be considered. The earliest Dutch houses as, for example, those at Kingston or Hurley had not the flaring eaves. Neither had the earliest Dutch houses in New Jersey. It has been ingeniously suggested that the projection was evolved to protect the walls and prevent the rain from disintegrating the mortar which, in the early part of the Colonial period, was frequently not of as good quality as it was later. This theory would seem to explain, to some extent, the habit of carrying the masonry at the gable ends only to the height of the first floor joists, filling in the space between that line and the peak of the gable with clapboards. In such cases, where the mortar of the exposed gable walls was damaged by the weather, it was an easy matter to re-point. Mr. Embury has still further suggested, coincidentally with this theory, that the desire to protect the masonry suggested the penthouses on two-storeyed structures. There is something to be said both for and against this hypothesis, but as the discussion does not materially affect the subject immediately before us it must be reserved for another place.