F 



120 Bricks made of Anthracite and Clay. 



ashes or sifted cinders, usually called breeze, and intimately incorpo- 

 rated with it, and so precise are tlie regulations in England on lliis 

 subject, that it is j)rovided by law that s^wen hundred and XwenXy 

 bushels of coal ashes, and neither more or less, should be mixed with 

 the quantity of earth required to make one hundred thousand bricks ; 

 and some idea may be formed of the value of this article of coal 

 ashes, and the quantity of it used in the manufacture of good brick, 

 from a circumstance which is detailed in one of the numbers of a 

 periodical journal called the Emporium of Arts and Sciences, pub- 

 lished in Philadelphia, in the year 1814, by Doctor Cooper, now 

 president of Columbia College, South Carolina, a gentleman fronj 

 whose distinguished talents in every branch of science, the public are 

 indebted for much valuable information, and who by his exertions in 

 the dissemination of useful knowledge, seems to have given the first 

 impulse to the rapid progress which the arts and manufactures have 

 made in this country. In one of the numbers of this useful journal, 

 when referring to the progress of brick-making in England, he says : 

 " I can well remember whqn the parish of St. James', Westminster, 

 paid the scavengers seven hundred pounds sterling annually, for their 

 services in removing the ashes, and in the course of five years, re- 

 ceived twelve hundred pounds sterling from them for the privilege of 

 taking it away for the purpose of brick-making." 



From the want of breeze in this country, that is, cinders or sea 

 coal ashes, great waste of fuel has taken place, and more time is re- 

 quired to burn the brick than in England; besides they w^ere seldom 

 thoroughly burnt to the centre, w^ich rendered them pervious to wa- 

 ter, and liable to crumble when exposed to the atmosphere. 



The success attending Mr. Wood's experiment in the substitution 

 of anthracite coal dust for the ashes of sea coal as used in England, 

 was so complete that he was induced to take out a patent for the ex- 

 clusive right to the use of it in the burning of brick ) the patent, it 

 seems, did not enter into a particular specification of the manner of 

 using it, but merely refers to the general appHcation ^ whether, after 

 what I have stated of the acknowledged and ascertained value of the 

 admixture of cinders and ashes of sea coal, and the constant use of 

 them in England for many years, such a patent can be considered as 

 tenable and valid in this country, must be decided by those who are 

 more conversant with the subject than I am, but those who are ac- 

 quainted with the particular qualities of the anthracite coal, will be at 

 no loss to understand in how many respects it resembles the cinders 



