Various

“ The architect who desires to make an effective brick building, which shall honestly proclaim to all the world that it is of brick, may do this, and, if he will, may do it successfully, by employing brickwork and no other material, but making the best use of the opportunities which it affords, or he may erect his building of brickwork and stone combined, or of brickwork and terra cotta. ”

“ A good London stock brick is an excellent brick for general purposes, but cannot be called beautiful.
Considering the vast quantity of brickwork done in the metropolis, it is a matter for congratulation that such sound materials as good stock bricks, stone lime, and Thames sand are so easily procurable, and can be had at a price that puts them within the reach of all respectable builders. When a clamp has been burnt its contents are found to have been unequally fired, and are part of them underburnt, part well burnt, part overburnt. ”

“ The fact is that the bricks have been calcined already, so has the lime in the mortar, and the sand is not affected by heat, so there is nothing in brickwork to burn. Against each of these good qualities, however, we may set a corresponding defect.
If brickwork is easily thrown into any shape, it is also easily thrown out of shape. It has little coherence or stability, less than masonry and very considerably less than timber. If any unequal settlement in the foundation of a brick building occurs, those long zigzag cracks with which we in London are only too familiar set themselves up at once ”

“ With most sorts of brick the outer face absorbs moisture whenever the weather is moist; and in time the action of the rain, and the subsequent action of frost upon the moisture so taken up, destroys the mortar in the joints, which are to be seen perfectly open, as if they had been raked out, in old brickwork, and in some cases (happily not in many) the action of weather destroys the bricks themselves, the face decaying away, and the brick becoming soft.
Against this serious defect in our staple building material a series of precautions have been devised. ”

“ A very large number of inventions for making bricks by machinery have been patented. If you have occasion to look through the specifications of these patents, you will find four or five main ideas appearing and reappearing, and only here and there an invention which is to some extent different from the others. A great majority of these inventions include machinery for preparing the clay or brick earth, so that it may be dug up and filled into a receptacle and worked up, screened from pebbles, and made fit for use in a short time, so as not to have to wait a whole winter. ”

“ The rooms of our houses are receiving air constantly through the walls, and much of the constant current up our chimneys is supplied, to our great advantage, in this very imperceptible manner. The house breathes, so to speak, through the pores of its brickwork. When this is rendered impossible, it seems clear that fiercer draughts will enter through the chinks and crevices, and that there will be a greater demand upon flues not in use, occasioning down draught in the chimneys. ”

“ The war time at the beginning of this century was a trying time for builders, with its high prices and heavy taxes, and some of the good-looking brick buildings of that day turn out to have been very badly built when they are pulled about for alterations. With the rapid, wonderful increase in population and wealth in this metropolis during the last 50 years a vast consumption of bricks has taken place, and a year or two back it was reported by the commissioners of police that the extensions of London equaled in a year 70 miles of new house property, practically all of brick. ”

“ Sometimes it is the same color when cut, but the hardest stocks are of a dark, dirty purple or brown, or sometimes nearly black inside. A stock brick is rarely quite square or quite true; its surface is often disfigured by black specks and small pits, and a stack of them often looks uninviting; yet a skillful bricklayer, by throwing out the worst, by placing those of bad colors or much out of shape in the heart of the wall, and by bringing to the front the best end or side of those bricks which form part of the face, can always make the bricks in his work look far better than in the stack. ”

“ Good brick earth is not simple clay, but a compound substance; and what is essential is that it should burn hard or, in other words, partly vitrify under the action of heat. The brick earth is usually dug up in the autumn, left for the frosts of winter to break it up, and worked up in the early spring.
The moulding is to a very large extent done by hand, sometimes in a wet mould, sometimes in a dry sanded mould, and the bricks are first air-dried, often under some slight shelter, as the rain or frost damages them when fresh made ”

“ In many parts of England special varieties of brick are to be found, and every here and there one falls upon a good brickmaker who is able to produce good moulded or embossed or ornamental bricks, such as those which have been supplied to me years ago by Mr. Gunton, and more recently by Mr. Brown, both of Norwich, or by Mr. Cooper, of Maidenhead.
It is of importance to those whose business it is to look after or engage in building operations, that they should early learn what to look out for in each material. Of course, a man only becomes a judge of bricks, or timber, or stone by experience ”

“ If you wish to throw out any bold projection, you may support it on a long and sloping corbel of brickwork. But if there is not room for that, you must call in some other material, and form the actual support in stone, or terra cotta, or iron, and when you have gained your projection, you may then go on in brickwork if you like.
Brick cornices should be steep, but cannot be bold, and so with other ornamental and structural features. A noteworthy property of brickwork, and one of immense value, is that it is thoroughly fireproof; in fact, almost the only perfectly fireproof material. ”

“ Where timber is scarce, and stone can be had, houses are built of stone. Where there is no timber and no stone, they are built of earth--sometimes in its natural state, sometimes made into bricks and sun-dried, but more often made into bricks and burned.
London is one of the places that occupies a spot which has long ceased to yield timber, and yields no stone, so we fall back on earth--burnt into the form of bricks. Brick was employed in remote antiquity. ”

“ It is a constant practice to cut bricks to this shape and build them into an arch, and these are sometimes cut and rubbed; sometimes, when the work is rougher, they are axed. But in order to save the labor of cutting, arches are sometimes turned with the bricks left square, and the joints wedge shaped. In this case the rings should be only half a brick each, so that the wedge need not be so very much wider at back than at face, and they are set in cement, as that material adheres so closely and sets so hard. ”

“ Very fine coal or cinders is mixed with the brick earth, and when the bricks are fired these minute particles of fuel scattered through the material all of them burn, and serve to bake the heart of the brick. Stock bricks are burnt in a clamp made of the raw bricks themselves with layers of fuel, and erected on earth slightly scooped out near the middle, so that as the bricks shrink they drop together, and do not fall over sideways. ”

“ In an exposed situation rain will drive completely through a tolerably stout brick wall. If water be allowed to drop or fall against it, the wall will become saturated like a sponge. If the foot of a wall becomes wet, or if the earth resting against the lower parts of it be moist, water will, if not checked, rise to a great height in it, and if the upper part of the wall be wet, the water will sink downward. ”

“ A pug mill is a machine consisting of a large cylinder with a central shaft passing through it from top to bottom. Knives or blades are arranged spirally on the shaft, and other blades project into the interior of the cylinder from the walls of it. The material, after being screened, is fed into this at the top, and properly moistened. The shaft is caused to rotate, and the blades divide and subdivide the material, forcing it always downward, so that it at last escapes at the bottom of the pug mill in a continuous stream of moist, well worked up clay, issuing with some force. ”

“ In some of these German buildings, indeed, very difficult pieces of construction, such as we are in the habit of thinking can only be executed in stone, are successfully attempted in brick. For example, they execute large tracery windows in this material. Great brick gables, often with the stepped outline known as crows' feet, are an excellent architectural feature of these German brick-built towns. In parts of France, also, ornamental brickwork was from time to time made use of, but not extensively. It is not necessary to go very minutely into the manufacture of bricks ”

“ We found that Roullier made a mistake in using leather offal, as, in the links of an iron chain, if one link is weak or defective, the whole chain is worthless, so in link belts, if one or two links are weak or made of poor material, the whole belt is affected by them. It is therefore of vital importance that only the best and most solid leather be used in making the links; second, the leather must be made very pliable, but at the same time its toughness and tenacity must not be injured, or it will stretch and break. ”

“ The material which comes from the kiln is called quicklime, and, on being dosed with water, it slakes, and crumbles to powder, and in the state of slaked lime is mixed up with mortar. Cement stones are also calcined; but the resulting material will not fall to pieces or slake under water. It must be ground very fine, and when moistened sets rapidly, and as well under water as in air, and becomes very hard and is very tenacious. Brickwork in mortar will always settle and compress to some extent. Not so brickwork in cement, which occasionally expands, but is never to be compressed. ”

“ At the bottom of the chasm, seven hundred feet across, and stretching over a muddy, turbulent, seething cauldron of spray, a brilliantly distinct rainbow in the full light of day may be seen with its scarcely less glorious reflection, dazzlingly beautiful. ”

“ The rule given in popular handbook, that brickwork in mortar should not have to carry more than three tons per superficial foot, and in cement more than five tons, is probably sound, as in no building ought the load to approach the crushing point, and, indeed, there are many sorts of foundations on which such a load as five tons per foot would be too great to be advisable. ”

“ The Natural History Museum, the finest of them all, is hardly fit for our present purpose, as it is as completely encased in terra cotta as the fronts of the buildings in this avenue are in stone. But here are the Albert Hall, a fine specimen of mass and effect; the City and Guilds Institute; the College of Music, and some private houses and blocks of flats, all in red brick with terra cotta, and all showing the happy manner in which the two materials can be blended. In most of them there is a contrast of color ”

“ Brick and terra cotta seem to have a natural affinity for one another. Terra cotta is no more than a refined brick, made of the same sort of material, only in every respect more carefully, and kiln baked. Its similarity to brick is such that there is no sense of incongruity if moulded or carved brickwork and terra cotta are both employed in the same building, and this can hardly be said to be the case if the attempt is made to combine ornamental brickwork and stone ornaments. ”

“ The mode in which the mortar joints of a brick wall are finished where they show on the external or internal face is a matter worth a moment's attention. It is important that the joints of the work shall be so finished as to keep out wet and to be as durable as possible, and it is desirable that they should improve, or at any rate not disfigure, the appearance of the work. ”

“ The mortar, and even in some cases the bricks themselves, will rapidly deteriorate if moisture be allowed to get into the heart of a brick wall, and in exposed situations this is very apt to happen. Care should always be taken to keep the pointing of external brickwork in good order, and to maintain all copings and other projections intended to bar the access of water coming down from above, and to stop the overflowing of gutters and stack pipes, which soon soaks the wall through and through. ”

“ Mortar made with what are called fat or rich limes--that is to say, nearly pure lime, such as is got by calcining marble or pure chalk--sets slowly, with difficulty, and is rarely tenacious. Burnt clay or brick reduced to powder improves the setting of such lime, especially if the two materials be calcined together; so will an admixture of cement. Mortar made with what is known as slightly hydraulic lime, that is to say, lime containing a small proportion of clay, such as the gray stone lime of Dorking, Merstham, and that neighborhood, sets well, and is tenacious and strong. ”

“ When the beam is deflected out of its horizontal position and the wire thereby twisted, the resistance to twisting increases with the arc of rotation. To counteract this resistance and to render the beam sensitive to a very slight excess of load at either end, a poise, D, is attached to the beam by a standard, C, which poise carries the center of gravity of the structure above the axis of rotation. This high center of gravity tends to make the beam "top heavy," or in unstable equilibrium. ”

“ The gunboat Eber is an improved vessel of the Wolf type, but differs from other vessels of its class in that it has not a complete iron hull, only the frame and deck beams being of iron, while the planking is of wood and yellow metal. No copper is used on the bottom. The "composite system" of building is looked upon with favor for ships of this kind, because iron vessels which are kept permanently at stations in the tropics soon become overgrown in spite of good care, and thus suffer a great loss of speed. ”

“ Unfortunately, timber both rots and burns, and this bond timber has brought down many a wall owing to its being destroyed by fire, and has in other cases decayed away, and caused cracks, settlements, and failures.
The more modern method of introducing a strong horizontal tie is to build into the wall a group of bands of thin iron, such as some sorts of barrels are hooped with--hence called hoop iron. The courses of bricks where this occurs must be laid in cement, because iron in contact with cement does not perish as it does in contact with mortar. ”

“ If in every story of a building four or five courses are thus laid and fortified, a great deal of strength is given to the structure. Another method, which has rather fallen into disuse, is grouting. This is pouring liquid mortar, about the consistency of gruel, upon the work at about every fourth course. The result is to fill up all interstices and cavities, and to delay the drying of the mortar, and brickwork so treated sets extremely hard. I have seen a wall that had been so treated cut into, and it was quite as easy to cut the bricks (sound ones though they were) as the mortar joints. ”

“ But no one who has studied construction can look at them without a kind of wish for at least a slight rise, were it only two inches. Sometimes when these straight arches are to be plastered over they are constructed in a very clumsy manner, which is anything but sound, and from time to time they give way. The weight of brickwork, of course, varies with the weight of the individual bricks. But stock brickwork in mortar weighs just about one hundred weight per cubic foot, or 20 cubic feet to the ton. In cement it is heavier, about 120 lb. ”

“ We have not stopped at flat link belting, but have turned our attention to manufacturing round solid leather link belting, and believe that we have almost attained perfection in that line. As the illustrations clearly show, there is quite a demand for inch and upward solid round belting, and the difficulty always has been to join such a belt together. All steel hooks, etc., do not seem to satisfy. This, our new invention, is so simple that it hardly needs explanation. A belt of this kind can be taken apart in a short time, and shortened or lengthened at pleasure. ”

“ Damp rising from the foot of the wall, or from earth lying round its base, is combated by a damp course--a bed of some impervious material going through the wall. Damp earth may be kept off by surrounding the walls with an open area or a closed one--usually termed a dry area. Damp against the face of the walls may be partly combated by a careful selection of a non-absorbent brick with a hard face and by struck joints. But it is most effectually kept at bay by the expedient of building the wall hollow ”

“ As the molten metal flowed into the mould, it forced the fabric firmly against the sand wall, and when the casting was removed, the carbonized fabric was stripped off from its face without injury. In this way several castings have been made from one carbonized material.
These castings are as sharp as electrotypes, whether made of soft fluid iron or of hard, quick-setting metal. This peculiarity is owing to the affinity between molten iron or steel and carbon. The molten metal tends to absorb the carbon as it flows over it, thus causing the fabric to hug the metal closely. ”

“ In one type of machine this clay stream is forced through a square orifice, from which it comes out of the section of a brick, and by a knife or wire or some other means it is cut into lengths.
In another type of machine there is a large revolving drum working on a horizontal axis, with open moulds all round its edge. The clay enters these moulds, and there is an arrangement of plungers by which it is first compressed within the mould and then forced out on to an endless band or some other contrivance that receives it. ”

“ No streets have to be broken up in order to lay down pipes; and no wires have to be hung across the roofs of protesting householders.
The whole apparatus can be got ready to fit on an ordinary gas bracket; and two or three spare frames with "mantles" can be kept in the house in case of accident. Whoever sees the Welsbach incandescent light in operation will readily admit that it is the "coming light." It has beauty, brilliancy, purity, and economy all on its side. ”

“ Limes and cements are far too wide a subject to be dealt with as part of an evening's lecture on another topic, and no doubt they will hereafter form the subject of a lecture or lectures. To-night I propose only to remind you that there are such substances as these, and that they possess certain qualities and are obtainable and available for the bricklayer's purposes, without attempting an investigation into the chemistry of cements, or their manufacture, etc. Ordinarily, brickwork may be divided into brickwork in mortar and in cement ”