690' NEW YOEK STATE MUSEUM 



Tracks are also' laid along the benches, and as the working face 

 recedes the tracks are shifted with crowbars. The cars are brought 

 down to the working face bj gravity, or a small engine which is 

 chiefly used to draw ithem to the tempering pits. A temporary track 

 is laid over the ring pits, on which the cars can be run to facilitate 

 dumping. Those cars containing clay for the lower yard are run on 

 to a self-acting inclined plane, and on this the empty cars and 

 tempering sand for the upper yard are also brought up. The 

 tempering sand is dug by a steam shovel, at the base of the terrace 

 escarpment. The bricks are dried on covered yards and burnt in a 

 special type of kiln. It consists of two walls of best quality brick, 

 about 15 feet high and 14 inches thick. The lower portion of the 

 walls containing the doors are 2 feet thick, and the two walls are 

 about 20 feet apart. The two ends have to be walled up with 

 double-coal bricks after the kiln is filled. Coal is the fuel used. 

 The bricks when burnt are loaded on cars and run down to the 

 doek, those from the upper yard going on the gravity plane. The 

 tempering sand is discharged by the shovel into small cars, which 

 are drawn up an incline to the top of a framework and dumped, 

 the sand falling through a series of screens into cars below. 



The Croton brick co. has two yards, an open and a pallet yard; 

 and obtains all its clay from the river with a scoop dredge. It is 

 dumped into cars on a scow, which, when full, are run up an in- 

 clined plane on the shore and dumped. The clay is thus exposed to 

 the weather for several months before it is used. It costs about 

 15c a cubic yard to deliver the clay on shore and lOc a cubic yard 

 to haul it to the pits. Tempering sand is obtained from the escarp- 

 ment of the delta terrace just south of the yard. At the pallet 

 yard they use a hand machine to square the green bricks on the 

 racks, that consists of two plates of steel, attached to which, at right 

 angles and on the same side of the plates, are 12 smaller ones, 4 

 inches high. Attached to the large plates are two handles. The 

 two large plates slide back and forth on each other and so that the 

 small plates can be brought together. This machine .is set on six 



