Gold brick

“ Gold, piled up like the silver in a solid mass also composed of bricks a trifle larger than those of the less valuable metal, being actually of such a weight that a brick was as much as one man could conveniently lift with both hands. ”

“ The bricklayers and stone masons on buildings get about sixty cents Mexican money or thirty cents gold per day. When employed at piecework they will make $1 a day, but to do this work from dawn to dark nearly. The bricklayer's trowel is a small butcher's cleaver in shape and with it he lifts the mortar and cuts the brick. The pointing up of joints is done with a simple tool that forces a bit of round iron into the joint, where it rubs a round grove in the mortar; for finer work they use a V-shaped tool. These tools make nicely finished work. ”

“ Other calculations show that every time a load of clay is hauled out of a cellar enough gold goes with it to pay for the carting; and if the bricks which front our houses could have brought to their surface, in the form of gold leaf, the amount of gold which they contain, we should have a glittering show of two square inches on each brick. A single specimen of zinc proved to be absolutely free from gold. ”

“ but the other replied, "Don't take it so much to heart, my friend; put a brick into the hole, and take a look at it every day: you won't be any worse off than before, for even when you had your gold it was of no earthly use to you." ”

“ An infusorial earth from Tuscany is composed of silica 55, magnesia 15, water 14, alumina 12, lime 3, and iron 1 per cent. That also is made into very light bricks. The general principle underlying the method of utilising those earths of organic origin is similar to that of the Dinas bricks, though they do not always require artificial fluxing.
At Saarbrücken, in the Rhenish Province of Germany, a material known as “iron brick” is manufactured. It is made by mixing equal proportions of finely-ground red clay-slate with fine clay, and adding 5 per cent. ”

“ The total disuse of brick by the rich deprived the less fortunate Citizen of its advantages. The revival or introduction of any manufacture demands encouragement from the powerful; if that is withheld, who will attempt them merely on disinterested motives? Parsimony in the great revived the art of Brick-making. When a Prince found the price of labour increase, and wished to build, he first stripped the design of his architect of ornament: thus stripped, a plain surface might be composed of any hard substance; Brick naturally occurred, and bricks were made. ”

“ Iron, in large proportion, acts as a flux to other constituents when the brick-earth is subjected to great heat in the kiln, and on that account must be carefully watched. But, to the average brickmaker, the ferruginous constituent is far more interesting as a colouring medium. At a later stage we shall have something to say concerning the colouring of bricks, &c., but it may now be remarked that red bricks, in practically all cases, owe their colour to the effects of firing on iron. ”

“ The nature of the material prevents our having any great projections; they would require to be supported by iron bands and set in cement, and be entirely false construction, if not dangerous, and statuary or sculpture is of course out of the question in brick. But there is nothing to prevent deeply recessed openings in windows or doorways, and many patterns might be repeated, such as pateræ or cuspings. In all old brickwork there is no attempt to conceal the nature of the material, or make it appear to do more than it{173} actually does in the building. ”

“ Turning to the second table, compiled for the most part from brickmakers’ circulars, and from the original results obtained for the late Building Exhibition, at the Agricultural Hall, all the experiments, we believe, having been carried out by Mr. David Kirkaldy, it will be noted that great variation in strength is apparent, following the different kinds of bricks. The highest result, 1064.2 tons per square foot, was obtained on a blue Staffordshire brick, though that is very closely run by bricks made from slate débris (1056.2 tons) from South Wales. ”

“ The windows in the Castle of S. Angelo, between Lodi and Pavia, are the only examples I met with of the use of brick for monials. In Northern Germany, on the contrary, where the shaft was almost unknown, brick monials are universal, and generally unsatisfactory in their effect. ”

“ But what we more particularly desire to draw the reader’s attention to at the present stage, is not the employment of lime in making fire-bricks so much as its mixture with ordinary brick-earth, as in the manufacture of malm bricks. Sometimes the mixture has been effected by Nature, as is the case with true marls; but the brickmaker does not care so much for these, as without considerable and expensive artificial assistance they do not often make readily saleable bricks. ”

“ Now tell me where I am to find the brick you designate.”
“It’s in the cellar wall, about half-way down on the right-hand side. You will see nothing but stone for a foot or two above the floor, but after that comes the brick wall. On one of these bricks you will detect a cross scratched. That’s the one. It will look as well cemented as the rest, but if you throw water against it, you will find that in a little while you will be able to pry it out. Take something to do this with, a knife or a pair of scissors. When the brick falls out, feel behind with your hand and you will find the box.” ”

“ Though nowhere carried to such perfection as by the Lombards of the twelfth century, this decorative use of brick was by no means a discovery of the more modern times, as we see from the following extract from Thomas Hope's Historical Essay on Architecture:—"The ancient Romans wherever they found clay more abundant or easier to work than stone, used it plentifully, both in regular layers throughout the body of the walls as we do, and in an external reticulated coating, which has proved to be as durable as stone itself, from the fineness of its texture and the firmness of its joints. ”

“ The growing scarcity of wood, the usual costliness of stone, the abundance of clay, the rapidity with which brick can be made and used,—one season being sufficient to develop the most awkward hod-carrier into a four-dollars-a-day journeyman bricklayer,—the demand for more permanence in our domestic dwellings, and the known worth of brick in point of durability and safety,—all these reasons will, I think, cause a steady increase in their use. ”

“ The free use of metal ornaments, railings, for supporting signs, for down-pipes, &c., is unfortunate in not a few instances. At the point of junction between the metallic substance and the brick into which it is inserted, or in the immediate neighbourhood above which it is fastened, the brickwork is sure to be discoloured. ”

“ In the 16th century bricks were increasingly used, but down to the Great Fire of London, in 1666, the smaller buildings, shops and dwelling-houses, were constructed of timber framework filled in with lath and plaster. In the rebuilding of London after the fire, bricks were largely used, and from the end of the 17th century to the present day they have been almost exclusively used in all ordinary buildings throughout the country, except in those districts where building stone is plentiful and good brick-clay is not readily procurable. ”

“ Results on bricks not localised are not of much value, and it is absolutely useless for working purposes to give in one figure the strength of “London Stocks,” “Staffordshire blues,” “Leicestershire reds,” and the like. In a general way, of course, it will be admitted that the “Staffordshire blue” is a stronger brick than the “London Stock,” and so forth ”

“ The Babylonians and Assyrians attained to a high degree of proficiency in brickmaking, notably in the manufacture of bricks having a coating of coloured glaze or enamel, which they largely used for wall decoration. The Chinese claim great antiquity for their clay industries, but it is not improbable that the knowledge of brickmaking travelled eastwards from Babylonia across the whole of Asia. It is believed that the art of making glazed bricks, so highly developed afterwards by the Chinese, found its way across Asia from the west, through Persia and northern India, to China. ”

“ I do not know whether he will prove to be the coming man in this department, but whoever brings a greater variety of brick in form and color within reasonably easy reach will do a good work that shall surely have its reward; for brick houses we must have, ugly ones we won't have, and rich decorations of stone we cannot afford for common use. Meantime, if you can do no better, do not hesitate to use brick that have been treated to a bath of hot tar. They may look old-fashioned, by and by. No matter; an old fashion, if it is a good one, is more to be admired for its age than despised. ”

“ Compared with other materials, they have undergone slight changes with us, in color, shape, or modes of use. A block of wood or stone contains, in the eye of the artistic workman, every possible grace of form and moulding; but a brick is a square, red, uninteresting fact, and the laying of them the most prosaic of all work. By common consent we expect no improvement in their use, but rather sigh for the good old times when work was honestly done and the size of the brick prescribed by law. ”

“ When the nations of Europe took form out of the ruins of the Roman Empire, they inherited among other arts that of making brick, and subsequently carried it to a higher state of development, especially in countries such as Northern Italy, Southern France, the Netherlands, and Northern Germany, where the absence of good building stone gave a natural impulse to brickmaking. ”

“ The value of each metal is marked, even to a cent. How those values can be so accurately determined in a compound brick is beyond our knowledge. Fifty-seven of those bricks which we yesterday saw, were worth $101,950.80. The remaining eleven were worth $15,077.57. They were mostly from Virginia City and are being taken to New York. Mr. Reiner informed us also that these bricks are carried only by the Northwestern and Rock Island roads. On some days he has had as many as 160 of them in his car. They are taken east nearly every day. ”

“ From the Euphrates, brickcraft spread eastward to Persia, India, and China, and westward to Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The Romans, who were the great builders of ancient times, made very extensive use of brick in their immense building operations, wherever good clay could be found. From the numerous monuments of Roman brickwork that still remain, the brick are seen to be of an excellent hard-burned quality, and generally of a large, flat, thin rectangular or triangular form. ”

“ In hard burnt bricks, no doubt, a great deal of it is effectively used as a flux to other constituents of the clay; but in by far the larger quantity of bricks this sulphate is reduced to fine powdery particles easily picked out as being softer and lighter in tint than the remaining constituents.55 The weather-resisting qualities of the brick are naturally, not improved when much baked selenite is present; and the colour of the whole is apt to become variegated—that is, in a fairly soft brick. ”

“ Burnt bricks were not often used before the Roman period (Note 4) , nor tiles, either flat or curved. Glazed bricks appear to have been the fashion in the Delta. The finest specimen that I have seen, namely, one in the Gizeh Museum, is inscribed in black ink with the cartouches of Rameses III. The glaze of this brick is green, but other fragments are coloured blue, red, yellow, or white.
The nature of the soil does not allow of deep foundations. It consists of a thin bed of made earth, which, except in large towns, never reaches any degree of thickness ”

“ I trust, however, that the ignorant prejudice which made many good people regard stone as a sort of sacred material, and red brick as one fit only for the commonest and meanest purposes, is fast wearing out, and that what now mainly remains to be done is to shew how it may most effectively be used, not only in external, but also in internal works. ”

“ The brick is of a deep red, and, though not pressed, looks as if it were. The proportions of the building could not well be more perfect or more pleasing to the eye. Both the local press and the people speak of it as an ornament to the city, and express surprise that it could have been built for a sum less than eight or ten thousand dollars. ”

“ Price of red face and moulded bricks necessary to lay up this mantel, including hearth, fire-back, under-fire and tile shelf, $15.
Price of cream, buff, gray, pink or brown bricks, $27. Additional cost of metal frame is $2 for iron or $4 for brass. Below is a drawing of each ornamental brick used in this design. ”

“ Apart from the fierce and variable drying action of the open air, we have a fruitful source of cracks in the indentations made by stamping the makers’ name or trade-mark upon the blocks. With bricks burnt very hard this does not so much matter, but on the commoner kind of materials one may often perceive minute, hair-like cracks radiating from the indentations. We presume that in this age of advertising it is impossible to convince many makers of that fact, yet if full justice is to be done to the material, it will be better not to make any sharp or deep marks on the brick. ”

“ These bricks resist water, unite perfectly with lime, are subject to no alteration from heat or cold, and the baked differ from the unbaked only in the sonorous quality which they have acquired from the fire. Their strength is little inferior to that of common bricks, but much greater in proportion to their weight; for M. Fabbroni found, that a floating brick, measuring 7 inches in length, 41⁄2 in breadth, and one inch eight lines in thickness, weighed only 141⁄4 ounces; whereas a common brick weighed 5 pounds, 63⁄4 ounces. ”