662 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



there is a pug mill attached to the machine. In all these ma- 

 chines the material gets an additional amount of mixing by the 

 knives on the' vertical shaft. In fact many brick manufacturers 

 consider that the soft mud machine tempers the clay sufficiently 

 to enable them to dispense with a pug mill or ring pit and use the 

 old-fashioned soak pit. That they can make a very fair common 

 brick thus is not disputed, but it is certain that with a thorough 

 tempering of the clay, a better brick would be obtained in most 

 oases. There is one type of machine, the Adams, used by several 

 manufacturers on the Hudson river, which does not temper the 

 clay, but simply forces it into the press box. Some form of temper- 

 ing machine must, therefore, be used in connection with it. These 

 soft mud machines have a capacity of about 5000 brick an hour, 

 six being molded at a time. 



Steam power is generally used to run the machines, but some 

 of the smaller yards use horse power; this, of course, is much 

 slower and not economical except for a yard of a small capacity. 

 Some soft mud machines are more powerful than others, and in- 

 deed this is necessary. For instance a brick dried on pallets needs 

 a much greater pressure applied to it, and has to be molded from 

 stiifer material than one dried in the sun in the yard. 



Four men are required to tend the machine. A " molder " who 

 scrapes off the top of the mold as it is delivered from the machine 

 and watches the consistency of the tempered clay, to see that it 

 keeps uniform; a "mold lander" who takes the mold from the 

 delivery table and pkces it on the truck; a " sander " who sands 

 the molds before putting them in the machine, and a boy to watch 

 the machine and stop it when necessary. Beside this there are 

 four " truckmen " who wheel the bricks from the machine to the 

 yard, where they are dumped on the drying floor by two " mold 

 setters ". In the afternoon these men are employed in hacking 

 the bricks and wheeling the dry ones to the kiln. 



Stiff mud or wire-cut machines. Their name indicates the 

 nature of the process. The clay is tempered quite stiff, and 



