ON BUILDINGS IN INDIA. 385 



the usual standard ; not only in the saving of labour, but of 

 mortar, which here, as in India, is the most expensive part of 

 tbe wall. The width of a brick should not be greater, than 

 that a man can very easily and conveniently grasp it ; and 

 although Mr. William Jones lias not given information as to 

 the width of the Calcutta brick, (which is of more importance 

 to the workman than its length) I am of opinion that the best 

 possible size of a brick is the following, 



11 inches long as in Calcutta,^ 

 51 wide Vwhen burned. 



2^ thick. ) 



Such a brick would add 2i. inches to our single brick walls, 

 and in most cases permit them to take the place of walls now 

 built of li. bricks. A brick-and-half wall, in the fronts of our 

 middling houses, would give room for the window-dressings and 

 shutters; and, in a two-brick wall, there would be no necessity 

 of making thicker the walls of our best houses for this purpose. 

 This is not the place to enter into further details. Practical 

 builders can easily investigate the results from such a change 

 in the size of our bricks; but it will be difficult to be effected, 

 while the astonishing increase of our buildings gives to the brick- 

 makers such an influence over all our building operations. 



1 Use of brick dust in mortar. 



In his answer to the 8th Query, Mr. William Jones has the 

 following remark : 



The bricks contain much sand, salt, alkali, and other fusible mat- 

 ter, and will vitrify before they arc well burned. 



We might then consider the brick dust, made by pound- 

 ing the bricks of Calcutta, as so much sharp sand, and as hav- 

 ing lost that contractility which clay unverified by the admix- 

 ture of vitrescible substances, and unhardened by fire, universally 

 possesses. In this state, it might be an unobjectionable ingredient 

 in cement in America. But as it is evident from the process of 

 laying on the chunam internally, and also from the beating 

 required upon the materials of their terraces, that their brick 

 dust is not generally in this hardened state, when mixed with 



