V& b r i 
ly used in Englnnd, and brewed for this pur- 
pose : the worst malt will serve for distilla- 
tion ; and the infusion or wort without the 
addition of hops, and the trouble of boiling, 
is here directly cooled and fermented. See 
Distilling. 
BREYNIA, in botany, a genus of the 
polyandria dioecia class and order of plants. 
The essential character is, male cal. one-leav- 
ed, five-parted ; cor. none ; nect. five-glands ; 
filaments five, very short ; anthers roundish. 
Fern. cal. and cor. as in the male ; pist. 
germ globose ; style none ; stigmas five ; 
per. caps, five-celled ; seeds solitary. There 
is one species, a native of New Caledonia. 
BRIBERY, the receiving, or offering, any 
undue reward, by or to any person whatso- 
ever, whose ordinary profession or business 
relates to the administration of public justice, 
in order to incline him to do a thing against 
the known rules of honesty and integrity ; 
it also signifies the taking or giving a reward 
for offices of a public nature. 
As to the punishment of bribery, by the 
common law, bribery in a judge, was looked 
upon as an offence of so heinous a nature, 
that it was sometimes punished as high trea- 
son. 3 Inst. 148. And all other kinds of brib- 
ery are punishable by fine and imprison- 
ment ; which may also be inflicted on those 
who offer a bribe though not taken. Blade. 
143. 2 Inst. 147. 
BRICIANI, a military order, instituted 
by St. Bridget, queen of Sweden. 
BRICK, a reddish earth, of the aluminous 
Cr argillaceous kind, formed into long 
squares, by means of a wooden mould, and 
llien baked or burnt. lit the east they baked 
their bricks in the sun ; the Romans used 
them unburnt, only leaving them to dry for 
four or five years in the air. 
Bricks, among us, are various, according 
to their various forms, dimensions, uses, 
method of making, &c. the principal of 
which are, compass bricks, of a circular 
form, used in steyning of walls : concave, or 
hollow bricks, on one side flat like a common 
brick, on the other hollowed, and used for 
conveyance of w’ater ; feather-edged bricks, 
which are like common statute bricks, only 
thinner on one edge than the other, and used 
for penning up the brick-pannels in timber 
buildings : cogging bricks are used for mak- 
ing the indented works under the coping of 
walls built with great bricks : coping bricks, 
formed on purpose for coping of walls : Dutch 
or Flemish bricks, used to pave yards, or 
stables, and for soap boilers’ vaults, and cis- 
terns : clinkers, such bricks as are glazed by 
the heat of the fire in making: sandal or 
samel-bricks, are such as lie outmost in a 
kiln, or clamp, and consequently are soft and 
useless, as not being thoroughly burnt: 
great bricks are those twelve inches long, 
six broad, and three thick, used to build 
fence walls: plaister or buttress bricks, have 
a notch at one end, half the breadth of the 
brick ; their use is to bind the work which 
is built of great bricks: statute bricks, or 
small common bricks, ought, when burnt, to 
be nine inches long, four broad, and two and 
a half thick. 
The art of brickmaking is, in almost all its 
branches, regulated by different acts of par- 
liament. Bricks may be made of pure clay, 
or of clay mixed with sand or ashes, or with 
both. The clay is first moistened and tem- 
15 R I 
pered with water, to render it fit for mould- 
ing into bricks. Then several persons 
are usually employed in making a single 
brick: these are called a gang, and they 
consist of one or two men, a v oinan, and two 
children, to each of which is assigned a dif- 
ferent department in the occupation. A 
gang in full work will make many thousand 
bricks in the course of a week. When the 
bricks are made and sufficiently dried, they 
are burnt in a kiln. The great art in this 
part of the process, is required in piling the 
bricks, so that the lire may circulate through 
every course, and in all directions. Bricks 
when finished are of different colours, ac- 
cording to the clay of which they are made ; 
the most beautiful are the white bricks ma- 
nufactured at Woolpit in Suffolk. 
BRICKLAYER, one who lays bricks in 
the building of edifices of any kind. Tilers 
and bricklayers were incorporated 10 Eliz. 
under the name of master and wardens of the 
society of freemen of the mystery and art of 
tilers and bricklayers. 
BRIDEWELL, in Bridge-street, Black- 
friars, is a foundation of a singular nature, 
partaking partly of the hospital, the prison, 
and the workhouse. It was founded by Ed- 
ward VI. who presented the place, which 
had formerly been the palace of king John, 
to the city of London, with 700 marks of 
land, bedding and other furniture. Several 
youths are sent to this hospital as apprentices 
to manufacturers who reside there, and when 
they have faithfully served their time of se- 
ven years, they are presented with their 
freedom, and ten pounds each for carrying 
oh their respective trades. 
BRIDGE, a work of masonry or timber, 
consisting of one or more arches, built over 
a river, canal, or piece of water, for the con- 
veniency of crossing the same. 
Bridges are a sort of edifices very difficult 
to execute, on account of the inconvenience 
ot laying foundations and walling under wa- 
ter. The parts of a bridge are the piers, the 
arches, the pavement, or way over for cattle 
and carriages, the foot way on each side, for 
foot passengers, the rail or parapet, which 
incloses the whole, and the buttments or ends 
of the bridge on the bank. 
The conditions required in a bridge are, 
that it shall be well designed, and suitably de- 
corated. The piers of stone bridges should 
be equal in number, that there may be one 
arch in the middle, where commonly the 
current is strongest; their thickness is not to 
be less than a sixth part of the span of the 
arch, nor more than a fourth ; they are com- 
monly guarded in the front with angular 
starlings, to break the force of the current. 
As the piers of bridges always diminish the 
bed of a river in case of inundations, the bed 
must be sunk or hollowed in proportion to 
the space taken up by the piers (as the wa- 
ters gain in depth what they lose in breadth) 
which otherwise conduce to wash away the 
foundation and endanger the piers : to pre- 
vent this, they sometimes diminish the cur- 
rent, either by lengthening its course, or 
making it more winding ; or by stopping the 
bottom with rows of planks, stakes, or piles, 
which break the current. It is also required 
that the foundation of bridges be laid at that 
season of the year, when the waters are low- 
est ; and if the ground is rocky, hard gravel, 
BKI 
or stony, the first stones of the foundation 
may be laid on the surface ; but if the' soil 
is soft sand, it will he necessary to dig till a 
firm bottom is found. 
Bridges should rather be of few and large 
arches, than of many smaller ones, if the 
height and situation will possibly allow of it ; 
for this will leave more free passage for the 
water and navigation, and be a great saving 
in materials and labour ; as there will be 
fewer piers and centres, and the arches. &c. 
will require less materials ; a remarkable in- 
stance of which appears in the difference be- 
tween the bridges of Westminster and Black- 
friars, the expence of the former being more 
than double the latter. 
For the proper execution of a bridge, 
and making an estimate of the expence, &c. 
it is necessary to have three plans, three sec- 
tions, and an elevation. The three plans 
are so many horizontal sections, viz. first a 
plan of the foundation under the piers, with 
the particular circumstances attending it, 
whether of gratings, planks, piles, &c. ; the 
2d is the plan of the piers- and arches; and 
the 3d is ihe plan of the superstructure, with 
the paved road and banquet. The three 
sections are vertical ones ; the first of them 
a longitudinal section from end to end of the 
bridge, and through the middle of the breadth;, 
the 2d, a transverse one, or across it, and 
through the summit of an arch ; and the 3d 
also across, but taken upon a pier. The ele- 
vation is an orthographic projection of one 
side or face of the bridge, or its appearance 
as viewed at a distance, shewing the exterior ; 
aspect of the materials, with the manner in 
which they are disposed, &c. 
For the figure of the arches, some prefer 
the semicircle, though perhaps without 
knowing any good reason why ; others the 5 
elliptical form, as having many advantages 
over the semi-circular ; and some talk of the 
catenarian arch, though its pretended ad- 
vantages are only chimerical ; but the arch 
of equilibration is the only perfect one, so as 
to be equally strong in every part. See 
Arch of Equilibration. The piers are 
of different thickness, according to the figure, 
span, and height of the arches. 
With the Romans, the repairing and build- 
ing of bridges were committed to the priesls, 
thence named pontifices ; next to the cen- 
sors, or curators of the roads ; but at last the 
emperors took the care of the bridges into 
their own hands. Thus, the Pons Janiculen- 
sis was built of marble by Antoninus Pius ; : 
the Pons Cestius was restored by Gordian ; 
and Arian built a new one which was called 
after his own name. In the middle age, 
bridge-building was counted among the acts 
of religion ; and, toward the end of the 12th 
century, St. Benezet founded a regular order 
of hospitallers, under the name of pontifices, 
or bridge-builders, whose office was to assist 
travellers, by making bridges, settling ferries, 
and receiving strangers into hospitals, or ] 
houses, built on the banks of rivers. 
Among the bridges of antiquity, that built 
by Trajan over the Danube, it is allowed, is 
the most magnificent. It was demolished by 
his next successor Adrian, and the ruins are 
still to be seen in the middle of the Danube, ; 
near the city Warhel, in Hungary. It had 
20 piers, of square stone, each of which was 
150 feet high above the foundation, 60 feet 
in breadth, and 170 feet distant from one. 
