7 
BRICK-MAKING. 
tender brick. He carries them to a hack and 
lays them regularly upon it, leaving the turning 
boards under them until the row is nearly filled, 
and this allows time for the bricks to dry and 
become a little hard on the surface, which they 
will do in half an hour in fine weather. Another 
who is in attendance at the hacks, takes them up 
and moves them to the next adjoining hack, pre- 
viously covered with sand raked smooth, and in 
doing so places them on their edges by inclining 
the turning-board with one hand, and applying 
the other to the brick, while he slides away the 
boards to be returned in the empty barrow to the 
moulder. The soft bricks are thus disposed in 
an angular manner like a worm-fence, but in no 
case more than two inches asunder in the widest 
part, and not touching anywhere. ‘The row or 
_ hack being finished, the bricks are sanded on 
their tops, and if the hack is long, the bricks at 
| the end first put down, will be dry enough to 
permit a second tier to be laid upon them, and 
so on until eight tiers or layers are so disposed, 
which is the greatest number that can be placed 
without danger of crushing or spoiling the shape 
of the lower bricks, and this number should not 
be attempted unless the hacks are long, and the 
weather fine and dry. The object of placing the 
bricks in this open manner, is to permit the air 
to blow through and dry them as effectually as 
possible, but they must not dry too rapidly, as 
that will cause them to crack. Should the sun 
be too powerful, the hack will require shelter, 
which is obtained by constructing a number of 
light frames, of a kind of basket work of twigs 
and straw interwoven. They are six feet long, as 
high as the hacks, and made as light as possible. 
These straw hurdles are so useful, no brickmaker 
should be without them; they afford shelter 
against both sun, rain, and frost, (which are the 
greatest enemies of the brickmaker in this stage 
of the business,) or they are set up in angular 
positions to catch and direct the wind into the 
hacks, if the bricks dry too slowly. Should vio- 
lent rains come on which might destroy all the 
work, the top of the hacks must be thatched, by 
placing long wheat or rye straw transversely 
across their tops, keeping it from blowing away 
by planks laid lengthwise on them. The hacks 
are raised above the natural soil, for the purpose 
of keeping the lower tier of bricks out of the wet, 
should rain occur. 
In about a week the bricks will be sufficiently 
dry for turning, which is done by moving them 
from the hack on which they were first dried, to 
the adjacent one left empty to receive them. 
They are now disposed as before upon their edges, 
but are put parallel to each other, about one inch 
apart, and the side that was before downwards is 
turned upwards. In the second tier or course, 
each brick is placed over the opening between 
the two_below, and so of all courses that succeed 
until the eight tiers are again completed. In 
this manner they still expose considerable sur- 
530 
face to the air, and as the bricks have now be- 
come tolerably dry, and do not require sun, the 
last drying hacks are sometimes covered for their 
whole extent with a slight thatched roof, to pro- 
tect them from rain ; or if the kiln is not ready, 
they are sometimes moved into a building for 
safety. The hacks sometimes require turning 
three or four times before the bricks are suffi- 
ciently dry for the kiln, and the drying usually 
takes from three to five weeks, depending on the 
state of the weather. 
Bricks are always made by piece-work near 
London, where a skilful moulder, having all 
things in good order around him, will mould and 
hack from five to seven thousand in a day of 
fourteen hours work, or about five hundred 
bricks per hour; but to accomplish this he will 
require six hands to wait on him, all of which 
are children. They supply him with the tem- 
pered clay and sand, and water to dip his tools 
into, remove the bricks as fast as they are mould- 
ed, and return the turning boards. Machinery 
is now coming into very general use in moulding 
brick ; and it is superior to manual labour, not 
only from the labour saved, but from its yielding 
a denser and better quality of brick. 
When small quantities of brick are required in 
a country where they cannot be obtained, or for 
particular jobs, the clay may be tempered and 
mixed by placing it on a hard bottom, and work- 
ing it by a shovel or spade with water, and 
trampling it, instead of waiting for a frost to 
break it down. In this case more water must be 
added than is fit for tempering brick earth, but 
it can be got rid of afterwards by draining it 
away, or exposing the earth to dry; when the 
moulding and drying must be conducted as above 
described, but on a smaller scale. In the vicinity 
of London, where the demand for bricks is enor- 
mously great, the large brickmakers adopt a dif- 
ferent method to that above described for tem- 
pering and preparing their clay, but there is no 
variation in the manner of moulding and drying 
upon the hacks. The clay is dug in autumn and 
frosted as usual; but instead of being piled in 
ridges or small heaps, the whole is wheeled into 
one immense pile, as frosting the interior is of 
less importance when machinery is used. At the 
breaking up of the frost the clay is carried in 
navigators’ barrows to a mill called a pug-miil, 
where it is worked by horse-power, and incorpo- 
rated with the necessary quantity of sand, chalk, 
or other material, and water, which is often 
pumped up and delivered into the mill, by the 
Same power, in such quantity as will reduce the 
whole earth to so thin a state that it is just cap- 
able of running from an opening made in the 
bottom of the mill for its discharge. It is re- 
ceived upon a wire sieve or strainer, that stops 
all stones or foreign ingredients, if their size 
would prove prejudicial to the bricks about to be 
made. ‘Two capacious ponds or reservoirs, about 
three or four feet deep, are formed for receiving 
