A slab hut is actually a 'slab-walled' structure. Its walls were, strictly speaking, built from 'flitches'. Slabs are sawn from a trunk, flitches are split from it.Sydney J. Baker states that this Australian use of 'slab' dates from 1829. Baker, The Australian Language Chapter IV: 3 'Dwellings' Hut-builders felled selected trees,Rawson, Australian Enquiry Book recommends trees ten inches in diameter as likely to be both sound, and easiest to handle. and sawed the trunks into suitable lengths.Harris gives eight feet for this length (Harris, Chapter V) others give ten feet. (Lewis, 2.03.3) They then split these lengths into flitches using a maul and a wedge. Splitting Slabs for a Humpy, 1911. Oxley Library.Lewis notes that by the 1840s, traveling teams of sawyers could be hired for this work Timber was split tangentially, that is, along the grain, instead of by the traditional British radial method, from the core of the trunk out towards the bark.Lewis, 2.03.3 There was neither time nor tools suitable to properly dress timber into planks, nor to season the timber; it was used green.
