Advantages of this method; Illustration and description of an invention for the production of tiles, table tops, wainscoting, panels, work boxes, Section III. American Tiles; Tile manufacturers in the United States Progress in the art of pottery since the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 Advancement in production of art tiles by Mr. J. G. Low, of Chelsea, Illustrations and description of the Low tiles Premium for the "Best collection of art tiles of English or American manufacture; hand-painted, impressed or embossed, relievo or intag- lio." Awarded to J. G. Low, at the exhibition in Crewe, England; Electrotypes made from compressed plates, with any desired pattern Use of a diaphragm of Japanese paper, or other material, in making elec- trotypes; Preventing tiles from warping or shrinking unevenly in firing by packing them in the saggers with quartz grains or canister, as is Mr. Low's plan for making dovetailed grooves on the backs of tiles Section IV. Process and Machinery for Manufacturing Flooring Tiles; Illustrations and detailed description of a machine invented by Mr. George Elberg, of Columbus, Ohio, for the manufacture of flooring DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. The plates of Low's Ornamental Tiles to face page 428. THE MANUFACTURE OF BRICKS, TILES, AND TERRA-COTTA. CHAPTER I. THE HISTORY OF BRICKS. BRICKS have been employed from the earliest times in the execution of many undertakings of grandeur and magnitude. The object of this volume is to give not more than a synopsis of the history of the art of brick-making, but rather to describe the practical details of their manufacture, as a complete history would be analogous to that of civilization with its advances and declines, for the authentic record of this branch of pottery is older than that of any other ceramic production, extending through forty-one centuries; the descendants of the sons of Noah, who journeyed from the East and located on the plains of Shinar being the first potters of whom we have positive attestation. They branched out boldly in this line, when in 2247 B. C. they said: Go to, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they said: Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. Genesis xi. 3, 4. The story of the manner in which this proposed monopoly of that portion of space between earth and heaven was defeated by confusion of the tongues of the builders, is too familiar for repetition here. But that something was accomplished will appear from the speech of Moses to the Israelites, delivered seven hundred and ninety-six years later, in which cities in the land of Canaan are referred to as being great and walled up to heaven. Deut. i. 28. Progress in brick-making has often been slow and uncertain; it has flourished in ages of prosperity with other arts, and like them it has been lost in ages of darkness; but with them it awoke with the renaissance and is steadily improving with the progress of time and the spread of knowledge. Machinery is doing much to lighten labor; but in all ages the work required to make bricks has been of the hardest kind, and many have been faint with toil in their production, in modern as well as in ancient times. The children of Israel, as early as 1706 B. C., were made to serve the Egyptians with rigor, and their lives were made bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in brick, and Pharaoh in 1491 B. C., in order to increase the burdens and labor of the Israelites, commanded the taskmasters, saying: Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves; and the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them. Exodus vi. 7, 8. Pictures illustrating the above passages are still preserved on tombs in Thebes, in which some of the laborers are represented carrying water in large pots to temper the clay; others carry on their shoulders large masses of clay to the moulder; while others still are off-bearing the bricks and laying them out on the ground to dry, the dried bricks being carried in yokes suspended from the shoulders of bowed and weary laborers. Taskmasters, who were personally responsible for the labor of their gangs, are plentifully represented, observing that there was no shirking of the labor, or slighting of the work. The mud of the Nile is the only material in Egypt suitable for brick-making; the modern plan is the same as the old: a bed is made, into which are thrown large quantities of cut straw, mud, and water, and this is tramped into pug, removed in lumps, and shaped in moulds, or by the hands. The moulded clay is sun-dried, not burned, the bricks of Egypt, both ancient and modern, being adobes. The men on the plains of Shinar who said: "Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly," fully understood their business. All bricks that are intended to support weight, or that are exposed to the weather, should be thoroughly burned. Partly burned bricks soon decay from the action of frost, and are easily crushed in comparison to wellburned bricks. A badly made brick may be thoroughly burned and possess great strength; while, on the other hand, a well-made brick may be partly burned, and have but little strength. The Tower of Babel was built of well-burned bricks, as were also the exposed faces of the walls of Babylon. Herodotus, the oldest Greek historian, testifies that the walls of this city were built of bricks made from the clay thrown from the trenches surrounding the place. Accounts of the extraordinary mounds of bricks at Birs Nimrod, the supposed site of Babylon, and the remains of other ancient cities of the stoneless plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, L have been given by noted eastern travellers. The buried palaces of Nebuchadnezzar have for a long series of years provided bricks for all the buildings in the neighborhood; there is scarcely a house in Hillar, a city of over 8000 inhabitants, built close to the ruins of ancient Babylon, which is not almost entirely built with them. "To this day," says Layard, "there are men who have no other trade than that of gathering bricks from this vast heap, and taking them for sale to neighboring towns and villages, and even to Bagdad. Many bricks found in this ruin are coated with a thick enamel or glaze. The colors have resisted the effects of time, and present their original brightness." On every brick that was made during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar it was his custom to have his name stamped, and Sir Henry Rawlinson, the oriental scholar, in examining the bricks in the walls of the modern city of Bagdad, on the borders of the Tigris, discovered on each brick the clear traces of that royal signature. The Babylonish bricks were usually of three colors-red, pale yellow, and blue; and also in all ancient Egyptian decoration, the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, were principally employed; green was the only secondary; to which were added black and white. The profuse employment of colored decoration is the distinctive feature of Babylonish architecture, the bricks being stamped out of a mould, and impressed with cuneiform inscriptions, which is a certain form of writing, the component parts of which may be said to resemble either a wedge, the barb of an arrow, or a nail, the inscription being placed in a sunken rectangular panel. The sizes of the Babylonish bricks vary, the burned ones |