144 THE IRON ORE DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



Extensive deposits of a brown, grayish brown, drab or gray, and yellowish 

 brown sandy clay or brick earth, containing a greater or less proportion of 

 iron nodules about the size of an ordinary pea or smaller, ferruginous pebbles, 

 and other impurities, lie scattered over a great extent of Harrison County. 

 These deposits are more or less suitable for the manufacture of a fair grade 

 of ordinary building bricks. When burned these bricks are of a pale gray 

 color, more or less spotted and disfigured by the presence of iron stains. 

 Soft burned bricks assume a light red or yellowish brown when the firing 

 has not been long enough continued. Bricks made of this class of earth 

 when properly burned are hard and show a minimum of shrinkage both in 

 air drying and firing. In the kiln they show but slight tendency to glaze 

 or melt. On being thoroughly dried and then immersed in water for thirty- 

 six hours these bricks show an absorptive power of fourteen ounces, or about 

 one-sixth of its weight of water. In the manufacture of these bricks, when 

 hand made, they require from two to three days to dry on yard and from 

 three to four days to burn, and require from one-half to three-fourths of a 

 cord of mixed oak and pine wood per one thousand to burn. 



There is only one brick yard in operation in Marshall and no others within 

 the limits of the county. This yard employs about twenty hands, and in 1890 

 made eight hundred thousand bricks, the greater proportion of which were 

 shipped to points in Louisiana. 



Although material suitable for the manufacture of a good grade of pressed 

 front or ornamental bricks is very abundant within a short distance of Mar- 

 shall, none have ever been made. For the manufacture of such bricks a clay 

 must be procured and worked in such a manner that the iron or other col- 

 oring matter is evenly distributed throughout the mass, so that when the 

 bricks are taken from the kiln they will present an even and uniform color. 

 To succeed in the manufacture of pressed bricks the clay must be thoroughly 

 worked, and in clays in which there is a probability of cracking or undue 

 shrinkage owing to an insufficiency of sand, the clay must be "grogged" or 

 sanded to an extent sufficient to prevent this taking place. 



Good clay for the manufacture of this class of bricks can be found in the 

 mottled brownish blue beds lying about a mile west of Marshall. The Texas 

 and Pacific Railway hospital and buildings in that neighborhood, on West Bur- 

 leson Street, stand upon heavy beds of this material. On West Houston 

 Street, near the Boys' College, it is also found, having a thickness of about 

 four feet. 



In the manufacture of terra cotta ware clays of different grades exhibiting 

 different properties are used. No such ware is made in Harrison County, 

 and none has ever been used. Clays suitable, by proper admixture, for the 

 manufacture of this material exist in the neighborhood of Marshall, and may 



