CLAYS, 237 



The plant of the Builders Supply Company is located on Middle Street, 

 Chesterfield Heights. The clay is a light-colored sandy material averaging 

 about 3.5 feet in thickness. There are only a few inches of soil over it, and 

 the clay is free from stones or shells. 



G. A. Stephens' brick yard is located on tbe Princess Anne road near 

 Godfrey Avenue. It is also working surface clay, which, however, is some- 

 what different in its appearance from that at the preceding plant. The clay 

 which immediately underlies the soil is a bluish-black, very stiff red-burning 

 clay. 



C. H. Phillips and Brothers operate a yard at Hampton, near Newport 

 News, and a reddish, sandy, surface clay is used, for making common soft- 

 mud brick. 



At Morrison, 1 mile north of the station, is the yard of the Booker Brick 

 Company, whose product goes mostly to Norfolk. This is a shallow 

 Pleistocene deposit, 3 to 4 feet in depth and underlain by sand. The 

 material is red-burning and used only for the manufacture of common brick. 



The Suffolk Area. 



Four brick yards were visited at this locality, namely, those of the 

 Standard Brick Company, Horrell and Company, Suffolk Clay Company'', 

 and West End Company. 



The Standard Brick Compan3^'s yard is located about one mile and a half 

 south of Suffolk along the Southern Eailway. The surrounding region is 

 underlain by a deposit of sand, often of coarse grain and variable thickness. 

 Some of it might serve for molding sand, and much of it no doubt would 

 answer for the manufacture of sand-lime brick. At the pit of the Standard 

 Brick Company, some stripping is necessary before the clay is reached. The 

 bed has a depth of about 6 feet, the lower two or three feet being a dark 

 bluish-gray and the upper half discolored by weathering. The lower clay 

 gives a harder brick but has a higher shrinkage than the top clay. 



The yards of the Suffolk Clay Company, and the West End Company, 

 are located west of Suffolk and on adjoining properties; in fact, the clay 

 deposits worked at the two are probably continuous at the yard of the West 

 End Company. The clay deposit varies from 5 to 15 feet in thickness with 

 very little overburden. It is underlain by a bed of black sand, which in 

 places is quite clayey, but is not dug with the brick clay. The clay has been 

 traced horizontally for at least 200 yards, and contains few stones. No 

 sample of this was tested. The clay is worked up in a stiff-mud machine, 

 and dried in twenty-four hours in steam-heated tunnels. 



