Brick-Making. 38 f 
tkey are constructed ; and bricks form no inconsiderable 
part of them* I say it is material to us, because if the 
bricks with which our houses are now almost uniformly 
built are in quality defective, and if the timber be of a 
similar description, we ought not to place much depen- 
dance on the solidity ol the edifice. 
The soil on the Surrey side of London is only calcu- 
lated for certain sorts of bricks, and these, it must be con- 
fessed, are inferior to those made in Middlesex. We 
have neither depth, nor that pure medium argillaceous 
substance, which is so essential to form the perfect brick ; 
we have either too much silex, or, to speak the common 
language, too much flinty sand ; and the stones are too 
abundant, large, and too near the surface, which cause the 
bricks to vitrify, and thereby their colour and quality is 
injured ; or we have a portion of calcareous matter, which 
causes the bricks, after being taken from the clamps, in- 
sensibly to moulder away by exposure to the air or to 
moisture ; and where it is argillaceous, as in Camber* 
well and Dulwich parishes, it is to that extreme, as to be 
impossible to be moulded without the assistance of some 
adventitious combinations. What those combinations 
are, which form the several varieties of bricks manufac- 
tured in the county, together with some cursor}^ remarks, 
will form the subject of this essay » 
Synopsis.— Ax Kennington, at Walworth, at Camber- 
well, and in Battersea parishes, we have manufactories of 
bricks to a much greater extent probably than all the rest 
of the county United. In analyzing the earth which has 
been generally used, I followed the plan of the learned bi- 
shop of Llandaff. Eight ounces of earth taken out of the 
pit as they were digging it (Mr, Fentiman’s), and mould 
ing it into an oblong square, I placed on the hob of a Bath, 
stove in my study, where a constant fire was kept for sc 
ven days. I then weighed it, and found it had lost oiv 
