£56 IMPROVEMENT IN BRICK§. 



Letter from Mr. Robert Wright to Mr. Stephen 0* 



SIR, 

 Having examined your method of cutting bricks, I an* 

 of opinion, that they would be particularly useful in all kinds 

 of brick work, make a considerable saving in labour and 

 materials, and that a much superior bond would be obtained 

 by your improvement. 



You are perfectly at liberty to make any use yt>u please 

 of my opinion. 



I am, sir, 

 Your very obedient servant, 



ROBERT WRIGHT. 

 No. 5, New North Street, Red Lion Square, 

 London, December 6, 1810. 



Description of the drawings of Mr. Stephens^ method of cut* 

 ting bricks for i ar ions purposes. See Plate VI, fig. 2 — 7. 



Explanation of Fig. 2, of plate VI, is a plan of the upper surface of a 

 the plate. common brick : the line a a is a cleft cut nearly through the 

 brick while it is soft by means of a piece of wire, as is shown 

 in the section, fig, 3; where the section of brick is shown at 

 BB, placed on the wooden block A, a piece of wire bb with 

 a loop at each end is pressed down into it, so as to divide it 

 into two parts, except the part C, which the wire will not 

 cut through because of the curvature it acquires in being 

 pressed into the brick. A brick of this kind, being burnt, 

 may be broken in two halves by one cleft with the trowel, 

 which will be found very useful in many cases which con- 

 stantly occur in brickwqrk, and will be far superior to the 

 present mode of hacking the bricks, both for the soundness 

 and appearance of the work, and will be done in less time. 



Figs. 4 and 5 show the application of these divided bricks 

 to draining, where AB are the ends of the two halves of a 

 brick, and C D tiles, forming the top and bottom of the 

 drain, this method forms a square drain. 



Fig. 5 shows how a triangular drain may be made with 

 half the number of bricks of the foregoing, that is one half 

 brick A, and two tiles C D. 



Fig. 



