BRICK

(Dutch bricke.) In Architecture, ama of clay earth, sometimes mixed with coal ashes, chalk, and other substances, formed in a mould, and burnt in a kiln or clamp. The earth used for this purpose is of two sorts. The one a stiflF clay, with little or no extraneous mixture, which produces a hard red bfick; the other a yellowish-coloured fat earth, called loam, which produces a grey-coloured brick. The clay is usually tempered in a clay mill. For the sea coal ashes that are mixed with it in London, they substitute in the country a light sandy earth. In making the paste as little water should be introduced as po ible. In moulding them, which is done in a wooden mould, a clever workman will mould about five you sand in fifteen hours. The kiln in which they are burnt is a large building, about 13 feet long, 10 feet 6 inches wide, and 12 feet high, furnished with a proper furnace. When otherwise burnt, the clamp, as it is called, is formed of the bricks themselves, generally oblong on the plan, and the foundations made with place bricks. Each course of bricks is laid on a layer of breeze or cinders; and flues are formed, filled with coals, breeze, and wood. The burning continues 167 BRIDGE. from twenty to thirty days. The size of bricks, when burnt, is required by the statute to be 84 inches long, 2A inches thick, and 4 inches wide. The different varieties of bricks are, malms, which are of a yellowish uniform colour and texture; seconds, not quite so uniform in colour and texture as malms; red and grey stocks, the former being burnt in kilns, both of a quality rather inferior to seconds; place bricks or peckings, sometimes called sandel or samel bricks, which are those furthest from the fire, and rarely well burnt, — these should never be used in a building where durability is required; burrs or clinkers, which are ma es of several bricks run together in the clamp or kiln from the violent action of the fire; fire bricks, of a red colour, about 9 inches long, 4J inches broad, and an inch and a half thick, — they are made for use in furnaces to resist the action of the fire, and from having been formerly manufactured in the neighbourhood of Windsor, they are sometimes called Windsor bricks; paving bricks, made for the purpose their name implies; compa bricks are circular on the plan, chiefly used in walling wells, and the like; Dutch clinkers or Flemish bricks, chiefly used in stables; the Dutch clinker is 6 inches long, 3 inches broad, and 1 inch thick. [s. 180]