BRICK YARDS 



177 



bricks after the kiln is filled. Coal is the fuel used. The bricks 

 when burnt are loaded on cars and run down to the dock, 

 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. 

 They obtain all their clay from the river with a scoop dredge. 

 It is dumped into cars on a scow, which when full, are run up an 

 inclined plane on the shore and clumped. The clay is thus 

 exposed to the weather for several months before it is used. It 

 costs about 15 cents per cubic yard to deliver the clay on shore 

 and 10 cents per cubic yard to haul it to the pits. Tempering 

 sand is obtained from the escarpment of the delta terrace :ust 

 south of the yard. At the pallet yard they use a hand machine 

 to square the green bricks on the racks. It consists of two plates 

 of steel, attached to which at right angles and on the same side 

 of the plates, are 12 smaller ones, the height of a brick. 

 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 

 bricks at a time and by moving the handles the plates press 

 against the brick, squaring the corners. It is said a boy can 

 square a pitful of brick (35,000) in a day. The molding machines 

 have an endless chain with buckets attached to them for feeding 

 the sand. This leaves only the clay to be shoveled into the 

 machine, and the feeding of the two uniformly and continuously 

 gives a more evenly tempered mixture. It will be seen in this 

 case that no soak pit or ring pit is used and the molding machine 

 does all the mixing. The molding sand is dried by spreading it 

 out on the kiln floor, it being claimed that it dries quicker this way 

 than if it were banked up against the kiln as is commonly done. 



The W. A. Underhill brick yards are situated midway between 

 the base and end of Croton Pt. They have two yards, both 

 covered ones. The brick made at this yard are sold mostly for 

 fronts, selling for §11 a 1000. The clay bank lies between the 

 two yards ; it has a height of 40 feet above mean tide and 

 extends 15 feet below it. At this last-mentioned depth the blue 

 clay stops and is followed by two feet of yellow clay, several 

 inches^of quicksand and through which spring water enters and 



