Bricks . 
159 
a floating brick, measuring 7 inches in length, 4J- in breadth, and 
one inch eight lines in thickness, weighed only 14j ounces; 
whereas, a common brick weighed 5 pounds 6| ounces. The 
use of these bricks may be very important in the construction of 
powder magazines and reverberating furnaces ; as they are such 
bad conductors of heat, that one end may be made red hot, while 
the other is held in the hand. They may also be employed for 
buildings that require to be light ; such as cooking places in ships, 
and floating batteries, the parapets of which would be proof against 
red hot bullets. The turrets which were raised on the ships of 
the ancients, says M. Fabbroni, were perhaps formed of these 
bricks ; and perhaps they were employed in the celebrated ship, 
sent by Hieroto Ptolemy, which carried so many buildings, con- 
sisting of porticoes, baths, halls, See. arranged in mosaic, and orna- 
mented with agates and jasper. 
Bricks appear to be of the highest antiquity ; and, as we learn 
from sacred history, the making of them was one of the operations 
to which the children of Israel were subjected during their servi- 
tude in Egypt. The bricks of the ancients, however, so far differed 
from ours, that they were mixed with chopped straw in order to 
bind the clay together, and instead of being burned were commonly 
dried in the sun. Vitruvius recommended, that they should be 
exposed in the air for two years before they were used, as they 
could not be sufficiently dry in less time ; and by the laws of Utica, 
no bricks were allowed to be used, unless they had lain to dry for 
five years. From Dr. Pocock’s description of a pyramid in 
Egypt, constructed of unburnt bricks, it appears that the Egyp- 
tian bricks were nearly of the same shape as our common bricks, 
but rather larger. Some of those he measured were 1 3 J inches 
long, 6J broad, and 4 inches thick; and others 15 inches long, 7 
broad, and 4| thick. The bricks used by the Romans were in 
general square ; and M. Quatremere de Quincy observes, that in 
his researches among the antique buildings of Rome, he found 
them of three different sizes. The least were 7J- inches square, 
and J thick ; others 16j inches square, and from 18 to 20 lines in 
thickness ; and the larger ones 22 inches square, by 21 or 22 lines 
thick. Among the celebrated buildings of antiquity, constructed 
of brick, were the tower of Babel, and the famous walls of Baby- 
lon, reckoned by the Greeks among the wonders of the world ; 
the walls of Athens, the house of Croesus at Sardis, and the walls 
of the tomb of Mausolus. The paintings, which were brought 
from Lacedaemon to Rome, to ornament the Comitium in the 
