CHAPTER XXXI.

BRICK, POTTERY, GLASS, PLASTICS.

WHEN the nineteenth century dawned, men were making brick in the same way for the most part that they were fifty centuries before. It is recorded in the eleventh chapter of Genesis that when "the whole earth was of one language and one speech, it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there, and they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly, And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar." Then commenced the building of Babel. Who taught the trade to the brick-makers of Shinar?

The journey from the east continued, and with it went brick making to Greece and Rome, across the continent of Europe, across the English channel, until the brick work of Cæsar, stamped by the trade mark of his legions, was found on the banks of the Thames, and through the fields of Caerleon and York.

Alfred the Great encouraged the trade, and the manufacture flourished finely under Henry VIII., Elizabeth and Charles I.

As to Pottery-Could we only know who among the peoples of the earth first discovered, used, or invented fire, we might know who were the first makers of baked earthenware. Doubtless the art of pottery arose before men learned to bake the plastic clay, in

that groping time when men, kneading the soft clay with their fingers, or imprinting their footsteps in the yielding surface and learning that the sun's heat stiffened and dried those forms into durability, applied the discovery to the making of crude vessels, as children unto this day make dishes from the tenacious mud. But the artificial burning of the vessels was no doubt a later imitation of Nature.

Alongside the rudest and earliest chipped stone implements have been found the hollow clay dish for holding fire, or food, or water. "As the fragment of a speech or song, a waking or a sleeping vision, the dream of a vanished hand, a draught of water from a familiar spring, the almost perished fragrance of a pressed flower call back the singer, the loved and lost, the loved and won, the home of childhood, or the parting hour, so in the same manner there linger in this crowning decade of the crowning century bits of ancient ingenuity which recall to a whole people the fragrance and beauty of its past." Prof. O. T. Mason. The same gifted writer, adds: "Who has not read, with almost breaking heart, the story of Palissy, the Huguenot potter? But what have our witnesses to say of that long line of humble creatures that conjured out of prophetic clay, without wheels or furnace, forms and decorations of imperishable beauty, which are now being copied in glorified material in the best factories of the world? In ceramic as well as textile art the first inventors were women. They quarried the clay, manipulated it, constructed and decorated the ware, burned it in a rude furnace and wore it out in a hundred uses."

From the early dawn of human history to its present noonday civilisation the progress of man may be traced in his pottery. Before printing was an art, he

inscribed on it his literature. Poets and painters have adorned it; and in its manufacture have been embodied though all ages the choicest discoveries of the chemist, the inventor and the mechanic.

It would be pleasant to trace the history of pottery from at least the time of Homer, who draws a metaphor from the potter seated before his wheel and twirling it with both hands, as he shapes the plastic clay upon it; to dwell upon the clay tablets and manycoloured vases, covered with Egyptian scenes and history; to re-excite wonder over the arts of China, in her porcelain, the production of its delicacy and bright colours wrapped in such mystery, and stagnant for so many ages, but revived and rejuvenated in Japan; to recall to mind the styles and composition of the Phoenician vases with mythological legends burned immortally therein; the splendid work of the Greek potteries; to lift the Samian enwreathed bowl, "filled with Samian wine"; to look upon the Roman pottery, statues and statuettes of Rome's earlier and better days; the celebrated Faience (enamelled pottery) at its home in Faenza, Italy, and from the hands of its master, Luca della Robia; to trace the history of the rare Italian majolica; to tread with light steps the bright tiles of the Saracens; to rehearse the story of Bernard Palissy, the father of the beautiful French enamelled ware; to bring to view the splendid old ware of Nuremburg, the raised white figures on the deep blue plaques of Florence, the honest Delft ware of Holland; and finally to relate the revolution in the production of pottery throughout all Europe caused by the discoveries and inventions of Wedgewood of England in the eighteenth century. All this would be interesting, but we must hasten on to the equally

splendid and more practical works of the busy century of the present, in which many toilsome methods of the past have been superseded by labour-saving contrivances.

The application of machinery to the manufacture of brick began to receive attention during the latter part of the eighteenth century, after Watt had harnessed steam, and a few patents were issued in England and America at that time for such machinery of that character, but little was practically done.

The operations in brickmaking, to the accomplishment of which by machines the inventors of this century have devoted great talent, relate:

First, to the preparation of the clay. In ancient Egypt, in places where water abounded, it appears that the clay was lifted from the bottoms of ponds and lakes on the end of poles, was formed into bricks, then sun-dried, modernly called adobes. The clay for making these required a stiffening material. For this straw was used, mixed with the clay; and stubble was also used in the different courses. Hence the old metaphor of worthlessness of "bricks without straw," but of course in burning, and in modern processes of pressing unburnt bricks, straw is no longer used. Sand should abound in the clay in a certain proportion, or be mixed therewith, otherwise the clay, whether burned or unburned, will crumble. Stones, gravel and sticks must be removed, otherwise the contraction of the clay and expansion of the stones on burning, produce a weak and crumbling

structure.

Brick clay generally is coloured by the oxide of iron, and in proportion as this abounds the burned brick is of a lighter or a deeper red. It may be desired to add colouring matter or mix different forms

of clay, or add sand or other ingredients. Clay treated by hand was for ages kneaded as dough is kneaded, by the hand or feet, and the clay was often long subjected, sometimes for years, to exposure to the air, frost and sun to disintegrate and ripen it. As the clay must be first disintegrated, ground or pulverised, as grain is first ground to flour to make and mould the bread, so the use of a grinding mill was long ago suggested. The first machine used to do all this work goes by the humble name of pug

pug mill. Many ages ago the Chilians of South America hung two ponderous solid wood or stone wheels on an axis turned by a vertical shaft and operated by animal power; the wheels were made to run round on a deep basin in which ores, or stones, or grain were placed to be crushed. This Chilian mill, in principle, was adopted a century or so ago in Europe to the grinding of clay. The pug mill has assumed many different forms in this age; and separate preliminary mills, consisting of rollers of different forms for grinding, alone are often used before the mixing operation. In one modern form the pug mill consists of an inverted conical-shaped cylinder provided with a set of interior revolving blades arranged horizontally, and below this a spiral arrangement of blades on a vertical axis, by which the clay is thoroughly cut up and crushed against the surrounding walls of the mill, in the meantime softened with water or steam if desired, and mixed with sand if necessary, and when thus ground and tempered is finally pressed down through the lower opening of the cylinder and directly into suitable brick moulds beneath.

Second. The next operation is for moulding and pressing the brick. To take the place of that ancient