gg BRICKWORK. 



BRICKWORK. 



IN Plate IX. are represented sections and a plan of a large retort-house, to a 

 scale of a quarter of an inch to the foot, containing thirty benches of retorts, 

 and capable of producing 300,000 cubic feet of gas in twenty-four hours. 



The interior dimensions are length, 116 feet seven inches width, 44 feet 

 eight inches height from the ground-line to the firing-floor, eight feet 5^ 

 inches, and from thence to the wall- plate fourteen feet, making the total 

 height 22 feet 5^ inches. The thickness of the outer walls will vary accord- 

 ing to the foundation ; in the example before us the basement is eighteen 

 inches, and from the firing-floor to the roof fourteen inches. If I were not 

 confined to a certain expenditure, I think in another case 1 should be inclined 

 to increase the thickness of the basement and upper portion, as high as the 

 roof of the coal-stores, by half a brick. The outer walls are so well tied 

 together and supported throughout, that a moderate thickness only is requi- 

 site ; 4-| inches added, however, would perhaps not be superfluous. 



In the basement, semicircular arches of five feet three inches span run the 

 entire length of the building, except the two at the ends, which are left blank, 

 to give additional strength to the angles. By means of these arches a free 

 current of air is allowed entirely through the coke cellar ; and if the coke is 

 well spread abroad immediately it is drawn from the retorts, no inconvenient 

 heat is suffered. 



The space occupied by the arches in which the retort-benches are built is 

 102 feet ten inches long by fifteen feet eleven inches* broad, with one arch of 

 five feet three inches span at each end. 



The piers are eighteen inches thick by fifteen feet eleven inches wide, built 

 from nine-inch inverts, and carried up three feet 4^ inches, at which height the 



* When worked out, these dimensions most probably will be exceeded ; but I never lose an 

 opportunity, in cases like the present, of giving the workmen odd inches in their dimensions : they 

 may not always work to them, but it increases the probability of correctness. 



