168 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



and when a charge is sufficiently tempered it is removed either 

 through a door in the bottom of the pan, or else by means of a 

 shovel attached to along pole and pivoted on an upright support. 

 Wet pans are more expensive than pug mills and require more 

 power to operate, and they do not temper the material as evenly. 

 They are, however, better adapted for tough and shaly clays. 



Stiff mud, wirecut machine. 



Stiff mud or wirecut machines. — Their name indicates the 

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

 charged into the machine from which it is forced in the form of 

 a rectangular bar whose cross section has the same area as the 

 greatest plane surface or end of the brick. The bar of clay 

 as it issues from the machine is received on the cutting table, and 

 is cut up into brick either by means of a series of parallel wires 

 set in a frame which slides across the cutting table, in which case 

 the machine stops when the bar has issued a certain length, or 

 else the bar of clay issues continuously, and is cut up by means of 

 wires on a revolving frame. The former method is usually 

 employed in connection with the plunger type of machine and the 

 latter with the auger type. 



The plunger machine consists of a large iron cylinder into which 

 the clay is charged, and from this it is forced out through the die. 



