Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 edition. Excerpt:...in the drying, thus saving one half the time required for hand-made bricks, and avoiding the risk of loss from bad weather. The following remarks by Dr. Ure are deserving attention: --"The brick kilns and clamps round London and other large cities, which are fired with the breeze rubbish collected from dust holes that contain the refuse of kitchens, &c, emit, in consequence, most unpleasant effluvia; but brick kilns fired with clean coke or coals give out no gases of a more noxious nature than common household fires. The consideration of this subject was closely pressed upon my attention on being consulted concerning an injunction issued by the Chancellor against a brick (lamp in the Isle of Wight, fired with clean coke cinders from the steam-engine furnace at Portsmouth dockyard. The bricks, being of the description called sand stock, were of course made in moulds very slightly dusted with sand, to make them fall freely out The sand was brought from Portsmouth Harbour, and, on being subjected to a degree of heat more intense certainly than it could suffer in the clamp, was thought to give out traces of hydrochloric acid. "As it is well known to the chemist that common salt strongly ignited in contact with moist sand will emit hydrochloric acid, there was nothing remarkable in the above observation j but I ascertained that the sand with which the moulds were strewed would give out no hydrochloric ncid at a heat equal at least to what the bricks were exposed to in a clamp 10 or 12 feet high, and fired at its bottom only with a layer of cinders 3 or 4 inches thick. But I further demonstrated that the entire substance of the brick, with its scanty film of sand, on being exposed to ignition in a suitable apparatus, gave out--not...