Tiles having long been employed in England for covering the roofs of buildings, situated in towns, and of farm-houses and cottages in the ; but of late years the use of them has been much circumscribed by the extension of that of slates. For the mode of manufacturing :mil using thein, see TILE.
Respecting sand, the ancient and modern practices agree nearly in all that need be said ; that which is or an angular shade, hard texture, and perti.ctly free from earthy particles, is admitted to be best. For the circumstances necessary to be attended to in employing it, as well as lime, see CEM ENT.
In regard to metals, in mialern times, the use of copper and bronze has, for building purposes, been mostly aban doned. Brass has been continued in locks, pulleys, sash windows, handles, sliding plates, connected with bells, and sundry other purposes in fitting up the interior of apart ments.
Iron has been applied to many purposes unthought of in former times. The improvement and general introduetion of cast-iron bids fair to create a totally new school of architec ture. It has already (peen extensively employed in bridges, pillars, roofs, floors, chimneys, doors, and windows; and the facility with which it is moulded into different shapes will continue to extend its application. The before-Inentioned
purposes, to which it has already been applied, are particularly noticed in the discussions of practice in the different branches of architecture, under their respective heads.
Glass, as a building material, Was little if at all known to the ancients; and its introduction alone has been pia duetive of comforts and elegances to which the most refined of the Greeks and Romans were utter strangers. Their oiled paper, transparent horn. talc, shells, and linen, would now, even to an English peasant, appear a miserable expedient. For an account of its manufacture, and application to archi tectural purposes, 8(.6. GLASS.
Besides the materials which have already been enumerated as composing the principal members, as walls, roofs. floors, doors, windows. chimneys, stairs. and pavements; hair is also necessary in the eoinposition of mortar for plastering the surface of walls and ceilings; likewise various paints and papers, fir covering them and other parts of the work ; all which are described, with the modes of applying them, in their proper places.