comforts. Topics discussed in this chapter include crop rotation; Jethro Tull's seed drill; domestication of cattle; the lives of architects John Vanbrugh, Robert Adam, and James Wyatt; international lumber trade; and Thomas Chippendale among other furniture makers. The Dining Room The dining room is a place for eating and this chapter discusses food. Topics covered include the history of nutrition as a science, scurvy, Christiaan Eijkman's research on beriberi, history of salt, black pepper, the spice trade, the Age of Exploration, history of tea, history of coffee, the East India Company, and table manners. The Cellar Looking at the fundamentals of structural development in construction. I The unlikely completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 linking New York to The Great Lakes – “the greatest engineering project the New World had ever seen". This was made possible by the development of water-resistant mortar (hydraulic cement) by little-known engineer Canvass White. This opened up New York's trading potential; its population grew in staggering proportions as a result, securing its primacy within the US. Pre-colonial US buildings' reliance upon wooden construction, because of a scarcity of good building stone – different log cabin structures explored (“notches"), which can chart the migration patterns of pioneering settlers. Timber in England becoming a scarce resource because of over-use, for example in the charcoal industry. Availability of domestic limestone from the Jurassic Belt, and the rich availability of clay-based brick in Tudor England provide a rich variety of hues and design patterns (bonds). A series of Brick Taxes discouraged continued use of brick, and prompted the use of stucco, celebrated by John Nash’s architectural transformation of Regency London. II The profound impact of coal pollution on the environment; on health and everyday living in London. Coade stone and brick proved good building materials. Brick use revived by the abolition of the Brick Tax in 1850. However bricks are less good for tall buildings, which prompted the exploration of alternatives - cast and wrought iron structures caused spectacularly disastrous results (e.g. the Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster and the Tay Bridge disaster) prompting the use of steel and, after 1856, the Bessemer production of molten pig iron. Steel was the material the Industrial Revolution had been waiting for. The Passage Subjects evoked by this 'room': The phenomenon of the Eiffel Tower built for the Paris Exposition, which took longer to design than build, and until superseded by the