anthracite dust in the clay, the time of burning was reduced, according to Prof. Mather (Geolog. Report, p. 144), to 3 or 4 days, and the consumption of fuel to 16 cords to 100,000 bricks. The mere expenses of burning this number of bricks are rated in the report at $80 for 16 cords of wood, $3 for 75 bushels of anthracite dust, and $6 for 4 days' attendance; total, $89. The preparation of the clay, moulding, drying, building up of the kiln, waste, &c., make all together a larger amount than the burning. As the bricks in a clamp are exposed to great differences of temperature, they are found of various qualities, when the process of burning is completed. Those near the flues are partially vitrified and melted together. Many are slightly fused on the surface, and baked to a stony hardness. These are called clinker-bricks, and are used in situations where they will be exposed to the weather, or to rough wear. The soft bricks are selected to be laid for work in sheltered situations. The very slackest baked are returned to the next kiln.-The immense consumption of bricks in cities has made it an important object to reduce the labor employed in their manufacture as much as possible, and consequently a great deal of ingenuity has been expended in devising machinery for grinding and moulding the clay. The number of patents issued in Great Britain was recently stated to be 230. The great number of these machines renders it impossible to more than, mention the general principles upon which they are constructed. One has already been referred to, in which the moulds are filled in the lower part of the mill. Others, on the same plan, are furnished with a contrivance for pushing out the brick from the mould, and the mould is then instantly returned to be refilled. Some on this plan have only single moulds; others a frame containing several, which revolves upon a plate or the bottom of a cylinder, and into this the clay is forced by a steam piston. Another class is contrived to force along a continuous rectangular block of clay of the size of the brick, which is cut by a wire, as it passes out of the machine, into the right lengths. Other machines have been made to stamp out the brick from a cake of clay of the proper thickness, as cakes are stamped from a sheet of dough. In several machines, as the clay is delivered into the moulds, it is subjected to the pressure of a heavy roller, and as the moulds pass from under this, the clay is scraped off smoothly, and the face is handsomely finished by the action of gauge-plates and knives. Machines are also in operation which pulverize the dry clay, and press this into moulds ready for burning. Sufficient moisture is always present to insure cohesion of the clay. A patent for this was granted in Dec. 1847, to Mr. Nathan Sawyer, of Baltimore. Another on the same principle was invented and patented by Woodworth and Mowen, of Boston, which worked by a steam engine of 20 horse power, pulverized and screened the clay, and moulded and pressed 2,500 bricks per hour. The pressure is applied

by a hammer or ram sometimes of 4,000 lbs. weight. The whole machine, as originally made, weighed with the pulverizer and screen over 20 tons. Bricks are thus made on Staten Island, and extensively used in New York. They present a smooth appearance, but the edges are not firm and sharp, and thus do not weather as well as the beautiful brick brought from Philadelphia and Baltimore. These have the advantage, however, of a better material, as well as a more perfect method of manufacture. In order to diminish the weight of bricks, they have been made partially hollow on one side-an effect produced by the mould having a rectangular block projecting from its bottom. From some experiments made not long since in Belfast, Ireland, with a powerful hydraulic press, to ascertain the comparative strength of these bricks it would appear that they sustain a much heavier pressure than the solid bricks of ordinary good quality. The experiments were tried upon piers of each kind, one 9 inches and one 18 inches square, laid in Roman cement. The mean results were, that the solid brick was crushed with a pressure of 683 tons to the square foot; the hollow brick with 1843 tons. Bricks have also been hollowed out on one side, with a view of forming, when laid, ventilating flues in the wall, the cavities in adjacent bricks being brought opposite to each other.-The red color of brick, as before stated, is owing to the peroxidation of the iron contained in the clay. If the iron is deficient or only partially oxidized through insufficient heat, the bricks are of a pale color. The clay in the vicinity of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is remarkably free from iron, and the bricks made of it are of an agreeable straw color, with no tinge of redness. These are so highly valued, that they are transported even to New York city, where several fine structures have been built of them; Trinity building, just above Trinity church, is one of these. Other colors may be imparted to brick, provided that of the oxide of iron does not overpower all other coloring matters introduced. In England, it is stated such bricks have been manufactured, which present a beautiful appearance. American bricks vary in size in the different states, running from 7 to 81 inches in length, 4 to 4 in width, and from 21 to 2 in thickness. In New York 5 courses of front brick are usually allowed to the foot in height. In New England the brick would make this without the mortar. In New York, 21 common bricks are reckoned to the cubic foot of wall laid. The weight is commonly reckoned at 4 lbs. to the brick; but this varies of course with the size, with the amount of pressure to which the clay has been subjected, and the heat applied in baking. Soft brick may contain several ounces more of water than a clinker-brick of the same quantity of original material. English bricks are commonly 9 inches long, 44 wide, and 24 thick.-UNBURNT BRICK. These are highly recommended by Mr. Ellsworth, late commissioner of patents, for the construction of cottages. He built several of

these, and found the material cheap and durable. The clay is well trodden with cattle, and 2 bundles of straw, cut in 6 inch lengths, are added to enough for every 100 bricks. Moulds are prepared of plank, with a bottom, but this must not be air-tight. They may be a foot long, 6 inches wide, and 4 inches deep. The moulding is done by hand, and the surplus clay is struck off with a strip of iron. As the bricks are discharged from the moulds they are set on edge to dry, and the second day are turned over. In 3 days, if the weather be dry, they are ready to be piled up under cover, where they should lie two weeks or more before using. In building walls, the foundation should be of other material, and a layer of slate or burnt brick, laid in cement, should protect the unburnt brick from the dampness arising from the ground. Walls of cottages are built the length of one brick thick, with courses of alternate headers and stretchers. This is the mode of laying brick known as the old English bond. It is necessary to construct the roof projecting 2 feet or more over the walls, and these may be further protected by plastering, and a second coat pebble-dashed. (See ADOBE HOUSES.) In France, as near Lyons, not cottages merely, but some of the villas of such pretensions that their inner walls are painted in fresco, are built in this manner.FLOATING BRICKS. A very light silicious earth is occasionally met with, of which bricks have been make that float upon the water. Clay may be added to the silica, if required, to bind the material together. Such bricks were made in ancient times, and were described by Posidonius and Strabo, and particularly commended by Vitruvius, Pollio, and Pliny. In 1791, they were again brought into notice by Giovanni Fabroni in Tuscany. The bricks are remarkable not only for their extreme lightness, but also for their infusibility, and for being very poor conductors of heat. They may be held by one end while the other is red hot. Similar earth, found by Ehrenberg to consist of microscopic silicious shells, has been discovered in France and at Berlin, and it is probably the same whitish substance, that is often found under our peat bogs. (See CLAY.) Bricks made of it are about one-fourth the weight of ordinary bricks. At Berlin, made with mixture of common clay, they were used for building the museum. FIRE-BRICKS. When bricks are required to withstand high temperatures, they are made of the most infusible clays, such as contain from 63 to 80 per cent. of silica, with from 18 to 25 per cent. of alumina, and the remainder water. Oxide of iron may be present, but the light color of fire-brick shows that this is in very small quantity. Lime would render the mixture fusible, and this is necessarily always absent. Such clays are of common occurrence in the bituminous coal measures, where they are found making the floor or underlying stratum of the coal-beds. The material is indurated, so that it is broken up like a soft stone. When used, it is ground in a mill, and mixed with fragments of

previously baked fire-brick, or of some refractory stone, or with a coarse, clean silicious sand and gravel. The materials are made into a paste with water, moulded in hand-moulds, and baked in permanent kilns at a very high temperature. Good clay for fire-brick is also found associated with other clays of more recent formations. The potters' clay formation found at South Amboy, New Jersey, contains beds of excellent quality, together with others of very pure sand, suitable for mixing with the clay. The manufacture of fire-brick has long been carried on at this locality. At Athens, opposite Hudson, on the banks of the Hudson river, is another locality where good fire-bricks have long been made. At Bennington, Vermont, an excellent clay is found of the character of kaolin, from which fire-bricks of very refractory quality are made by mixing with it stones that withstand heat, crushed sufficiently fine. These bricks are extensively employed at the blast furnaces in that part of the country. It is for the lining of such furnaces that fire-bricks are principally in demand, and for this use they are prepared of a variety of sizes and shapes, adapted to fit the curves in the lining of the stacks, and the arches of the flues. The standard size to which all the larger bricks are referred in reckoning their number is that of the common rectangular fire-brick, which measures 9 inches in length, 4 in breadth, and 23 in width; of these the weight is 7 lbs. These bricks, specially adapted to each pattern, are also employed as a lining for the anthracite coal stoves so extensively in use in the United States.-BRICKLAYING. The form and proportions of the faces of brick to each other are such, that they may be laid in various methods, according as the object is to produce the greatest strength of wall, or the most pleasing effects. Ornamental work, as cornices, beads, &c., is produced by causing courses of brick to project beyond the plane of the rest. By the introduction of mortar, bricks, notwithstanding their rectangular shape, are carried round to form arches of any desired curve; they are easily broken also into any required shape by the trowel, and thus are made to receive, if desired, the approximate form of arched brick. Fire-bricks, as mentioned above, are moulded in shapes for laying curves, as also common bricks for the lining of wells, &c. In laying walls, the first principle to be observed is causing the bricks of successive courses to overlap each other, so that the joint between 2 is overlaid by the middle of a brick. The courses are thus bound together, and the greatest resistance is offered to any force tending to separate the bricks. As the width of two bricks laid side by side equals the length of one, the position may be reversed with each course, thus securing additional strength. What is called the old English bond method of laying a wall, which is the strongest mode, is to arrange the bricks in alternate courses of stretchers and headers, the former being bricks laid longitudinally with the wall, and the other transversely, presenting

their ends or heads only to the face of the wall. Next the corner, a quarter brick on the row of headers must be introduced, so that the stretchers overlying may lap to the middle of the second headers. The headers are also called binders, from their effect in binding the bricks of the other courses together. Owing to their presenting a greater number of joints in the face of the wall, their effect is not so pleasing as is that of the stretchers, and it is too often the case that the front walls of costly edifices are seen too largely built of stretchers, merely for the sake of their better effect. In New York city it is required by the fire laws that 1 course in 5 shall be headers. This is effected, while stretchers only are seen on the face, by laying every 5th course in what is called herring-bone, breaking off the back corners of the stretchers to let the corners of the brick behind come nearly to the outside line of the wall. In the Flemish bond the bricks are laid alike in each course, a header and stretcher alternating along the course. The effect is thought to be more pleasing than the English bond, but at the sacrifice of some strength. Walls vary in thickness by the difference of the width of a brick. They are 8 inches or the length of a brick thick, 12 inches or a brick and a half, 16 inches or 2 bricks, and so on. Laid in English bond, all the bricks on one course must be placed in the same direction, even when the wall turns at right angles, and in turning the corner no 2 bricks must be arranged side by side, but the end of one must lap to the middle of the next contiguous to it, excepting where the quarter brick is introduced at the corners to prevent a continued upright joint in the face work. The work is strengthened by the occasional introduction of pieces of hoop-iron, which bind it together, particularly if the iron is somewhat rusty, which causes the mortar to adhere better. The bricks, in dry weather especially, should be wet before being laid, for the same object of uniting more closely with the mortar. As the wall is built up, no part should, at any time, reach more than 4 or 5 feet above the rest; for unless all upon the same level settles together, cracks will be produced where the newer work is joined upon the older.-Hollow walls, long a favorite mode of construction in various parts of Europe, are highly recommended by the late A. J. Downing, as by far the best mode of building brick houses, and various plans of laying the brick for 8-inch, 12-inch, and 16inch walls, are given in his "Architecture of Country Houses." The method has been adopted in nearly all the best villas at New Haven. Its advantages over solid walls of the same thickness, are a saving in bricks and mortar; also in the lathing and studding for furring off, the air space for preventing dampness being in the wall itself; and, lastly, greater security against the spreading of fire, as no combustible material is introduced in the walls. The 8-inch wall introduced by Mr. Dearn, an English builder, is worthy of particular notice for its great economy. He describes it as requiring only one-third of

the bricks and one-half of the mortar of a common solid wall of the same thickness. It is sufficiently strong for small cottages, and, being hollow, is warmer in winter and cooler in summer than a solid wall. Two rows of stretchers are first laid on edge the whole length of the wall, so that they are covered by the next course, which is one of headers. Upon this the stretchers are laid again in 2 parallel rows, and covered by another layer of headers. The mortar between the headers at their ends causes an open space between them in the middle, and thus the air spaces of the courses of stretchers are all connected. As the headers go entirely through, they serve to convey dampness from the outside, and consequently a wall of this thickness should have a protecting coat of stucco or cement upon the outside.

BRIDAINE, JACQUES, a French preacher, born March 21, 1701, died Dec. 22, 1767. He surpassed the greatest orators in the power of moving an audience by his eloquence, and going forth in the cities of France with his little bell, would rivet the attention of multitudes. Many extraordinary conversions were the fruits of his efforts. He had just accomplished his 256th mission when he died.

BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM are derived from 2 Anglo-Saxon words, bridam and gyman, and mean the cherished and cherisher, bride being applied to the newly married wife, and bridegroom to the newly married husband. As the enjoyment of these titles, and of the honors which belong to them, is necessarily brief, it has been usual, from the earliest period of antiquity, to make the most of a bride and a bridegroom during their ephemeral existence. They exist as such, indeed, only for one day, that of the wedding; becoming, on the next, simply husband and wife; and in every age, and among every people, the wedding-day has been devoted to joyous and solemn ceremonies. It was celebrated among the Athenians by offerings made in the morning to particular divinities, to Zeus and Hera, and especially to Artemis, who was thought to look with disfavor upon marriages. The bride consecrated locks of her hair to the Fates, and both the bride and bridegroom bathed in water brought from some favorite fountain. At night-fall she was conducted to the bridegroom's house, in a chariot drawn by a pair of mules, and furnished with a kind of couch, on which she sat between her husband and one of his nearest friends. She was veiled, and all were in their best attire, with chaplets about their heads. The bridal procession moved on, greeted and accompanied by friends bearing nuptial torches and singing hymenean songs to the accompaniment of Lydian lutes. As the bride alighted, the axle of the carriage was in some parts of Greece burned, to signify that she was from that time to remain at home; and as she entered through the door, hung with festoons of ivy and bay, sweetmeats were showered upon her, as emblems of plenty. Then followed the marriage feast, to which, contrary

boxes, is an innovation of the present age. Wine, too, was an invariable accompaniment of all marriages, long before the marriage feast at Cana. In our age, it is often dispensed with, although in times past it was customary to drink it in the church, the priest having first blessed the cup, however, to suit it to the holiness of the place. The Jews universally hold to the custom of wine-drinking on the occasion of a marriage. The bride and bridegroom having quaffed their share, the glass which contained it is broken, to remind them of mortality. This was done at the famous wedding in the family of the Rothschilds at London, in 1857.-The bridal kiss is of unknown antiquity. The old missals, which date long before the common prayer book," enjoined it as an essential part of the marriage ceremony. Moreover, it was always done in church. The priest, too, at one time, enjoyed the privilege of a kiss upon the cheek of the blooming bride as one of his perquisites. Groomsmen claimed and took it, too, for a long period, but of late brides have become more fastidious, and reserve the kissing as a monopoly for the bridegroom and relatives. It is recorded by an old historian that, when Mary, Queen of Scots, married that handsome rake Lord Darnley, she did not fail to comply with the ordinary practice. "They kneel together," says the ancient annalist, "and many prayers were said over them; she tarrieth at the mass, and he taketh a kiss."The arraying of the bride in the richest stuffs, and all of white, the wedding feast, and the giving of presents, are ancient customs. The love of expense, which is thought to be the characteristic of our material age, has led the moderns to make a great advance in the costliness of the bridal appurtenances. As far back, however, as the reign of James I., the presents given to the bride of Sir Philip Herbert amounted in value to £2,500, a large sum for those days. Great as was this amount, it has been much surpassed in our day. One of the Rothschilds, not long since, presented his niece with the bridal gift of a check for $1,000,000, and the various other perquisites of the bride, in the way of diamonds and plate, amounted, it was said, to as much more. The display of the contributions from friends and relatives now generally obtains, and is a practice which has lately been sanctioned by royalty. On the marriage of the young princess of England with the prince of Prussia, in Feb. 1858, a buffet was prepared, upon which the tributes to the bride of gold, silver, rich stuffs, and precious stones, amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds in value, were displayed not only before the unsurprised eyes of the court, but exhibited for the benefit of the astonished vulgar. Reporters and artists of the newspapers were admitted expressly that they might, in type and picture, reproduce for the curious public the wonders of the magnificent profusion with which the young princess had been endowed by crowned heads and wealthy magnates.-The ancients, for

some reason or other, esteemed certain days in the calendar as unlucky for matrimony. Lovers were told to beware of the whole month of May, and especially warned off from Feb. 11, June 2, Nov. 2, and Dec. 1. In the Orkney islands, in Scotland, "no couple," says Sir John Sinclair, "chooses to marry except with a growing moon, and some even wish for a flowing tide." It is particularly desirable that the weather should be clear, and that the ceremony should take place in the daytime, for

Blest is the bride on whom the sun doth shine.

BRIDEWELL, a house of correction. The name is derived from a hospital founded in 1553 by Edward VI., on the site of St. Bridewell, in Black Friars, in the city of London-a place which had been much resorted to by superstitious pilgrims. It was afterward used as a receptacle for vagrants, and a place of punishment for criminals. The name is used in this country for a prison to which delinquents are sent for punishment, generally having in view the reformation of the offender; but it is not limited to this. Its popular signification is nearly synonymous with penitentiary. All punishment except capital is, indeed, now understood to be intended, in part at least, for the reform of the criminals themselves, and hence various periods of imprisonment in common prisons are prescribed by law, as well as in the state prisons which are established in the different states. Practically, however, this benevolent purpose is accomplished to a very limited extent except as to juvenile offenders. In the city of New York there are a number of prisons and houses for detention and correction, which, together with the alms houses and city hospitals, are under the control of 10 governors elected by the citizens. There is, beside, a society for the reformation of juvenile delinquents, and another for reclaiming abandoned females. Similar establishments have been provided in all the large cities of this country.

BRIDGE, a structure, with one or more transverse apertures, raised for the convenience of passing a river, canal, or valley, and formed of various materials, as timber, stone, iron, &c. The construction of perfect bridges is a complex operation, and even among ancient nations of the highest civilization, did not always keep pace with the progress of the other arts. The type of the primitive bridges of earlier ages is to be found at the present day among rude and uncultivated nations, and consists simply of lintels of wood stretching from bank to bank, or when the span renders this impracticable, resting on piers or posts fixed in the bed of the river. The inevitable frequency of these in a rapid stream, and consequent contraction of the waterway, would result in a torrent injurious to navigation, and destructive to the piers themselves; hence it would be found essential to the stability of such structures, that the openings should be sufficiently wide to allow every facility for the passage of the water, and as this could only be