in building, the underside of a room, or that part we walk on.

Floors are of several sorts; some of earth, some of brick, others of stone, others of boards, &c.

For brick and stone Floors, see Pavement.

For boarded Floors, it is observable, that the carpenters never floor their rooms with boards till the carcase is set up, and also inclosed with walls, lest the weather should injure the flooring. Yet they generally rough-plane their boards for the flooring before they begin any thing else about the building, that they may set them by to dry and season, which is done in the most careful manner. The best wood for flooring is the fine yellow deal well seasoned, which, when well laid, will keep its colour for a long while; whereas the white sort becomes black by often washing, and looks very bad. The joints of the boards are commonly made plain, so as to touch each other only; but, when the stuff is not quite dry, and the boards shrink, the water runs through them whenever the floor is washed, and injures the ceiling underneath. For this reason they are made with feather edges, so as to cover each other about half an inch, and sometimes they are made with grooves and tenons; and sometimes the joints are made with dove-tails; in which case the lower edge is nailed down and the next drove into it, so that the nails are concealed. The manner of measuring floors is by squares of 10 feet on each side, so that taking the length and breadth and multiplying them together and cutting off two decimals, the content of a floor in square will be given. Thus 18 by 16 gives 288 or 2 squares and 88 decimal parts.

Earthen Floors, are commonly made of loam, and sometimes, especially to make malt on, of lime, and brooksand, and gun-dust, or anvil-dust from the forge.

Ox-blood and fine clay, tempered together, Sir Hugh Plat says, make the finest floor in the world.

The manner of making earthen floors for plain country habitations is as follows: Take two thirds of lime, and one of coal-ashes well fitted, with a small quantity of loam clay; mix the whole together, and temper it well with water, making it up into a heap: let it lie a week or ten days and then temper it over again. After this, heap it up for three or four days, and repeat the tempering very high, till it become smooth, yielding, tough, and gluey. The ground being then levelled, lay the floor therewith about 2½ or 3 inches thick, making it smooth with a trowel: the hotter the season is, the better; and when it is thoroughly dried, it will make the best floor for houses, especially malt-houses.

If any one would have their floors look better, let them take lime made of rag-stones, well tempered with whites of eggs, covering the floor about half an inch thick with it, before the under flooring is too dry. If this be well done, and thoroughly dried, it will look when rubbed with a little oil as transparent as metal or glass. In elegant houses, floors of this nature are made of stucco, or of plaster of Paris beaten and sifted, and mixed with other ingredients.

Floor of a ship, strictly taken, is only so much of her bottom as she rests on when aground.

Such ships as have long, and withal broad floors, lie on the ground with most security, and are not apt to heel, or tilt on one side; whereas others, which are narrow in the floor, or, in the sea-phrase, cranked by the ground, cannot be grounded without danger of being overturned.

FLOOR-Timbers, in a ship, are those parts of a ship's timbers which are placed immediately across the keel, and upon which the bottom of the ship is framed; to these the upper parts of the timbers are united, being only a continuation of floor-timbers upwards.