BRICKWORK. The art of the bricklayer is shown, not merely in laying and cementing his bricks, but in making them to mutually support each other. This object, which is termed bonding, is accomplished by brealdng or distributing the joints ; so that two may never come immediately over each other; and by laying some of the bricks as stretchers, or stretching courses, with their length in the direction of that of the wall, and others, which are called headers, with their length running across, or in the direction of the breadth or thickness of the wall. The bonds, in most common use are English bond, consisting of alternate layers or courses of headers and stretchers ; Flemish bond, in which headers and stretchers are laid alternately in the same course, the headers of one course being laid across the middle of the stretchers of the course below it; garden-wall bond, consisting of three stretchers and one header in the same course ; and herring-bone bond, which is sometimes used in very thick walls, and is produced by laying the bricks at an angle of 45' with the direction of the wall, and revers ing the inclination of each successive course. Whenever it is necessary, in order to prevent the perpends, or vertical joints, coming imme diately over each other, a half, quarter, or three-quarter brick, or bat, is used to cont inence or finish a course. Walls, the thick ness of which is nine inches, or equal to the length of one brick, are called single brick ; those half that thickness, half-brick ; and others brick and a half, two bricks, two bricks and a half, 8:c.
Arched and groined work requires peculiar cam, and in many cases the cutting of the bricks to fit each to its particular bed ; and in ordinary house-building great neatness is called for in the formation of the flat arches over doorways and windows.
Mortar, the cement usually employed for brickwork, is composed of either gray or white lime, and river, sea, or road sand mixed with water in the proportion of one part of gray lime to two and a half of sand, or one of white or chalk lime to two of sand. The dip
ping of the bricks in water as they are laid makes them adhere more firmly to the mor tar. Putty is a very fine kind of mortar, made of lime and water only, used for deli cate purposes, and such as the setting of rubbed or gauged arches, where the joints are visible.
The foundations of a wall are always laid broader than the superstructure, and the broader courses are termed footings, the jections themselves being called setoffs. Gar. den-walls are usually strengthened with piers or buttresses projecting 41 inches, at inter vals of 10 or 12 feet. When new walls are joined on to old, it is usual to take out a brick or part of a brick from every alternate corner of the old work, in order to tooth in the new work; and these toothings are left in the first building when it is intended to join new work to it. In many cases, also, strips of iron • hooping are laid in the horizontal joints, to afford a further bond or tie between the old and new brickwork. Brickwork is measured by the rod of 272 superficial feet.
Mr. Kennedy, in his ' Campaign of the Indus,' states that no brickwork he had ever seen in Europe equalled the perfection of that exhibited in the ancient tombs near Tatta. The most beautifully-chiselled stone could not surpass the sharpness of edge and angle, or the accuracy of form ; whilst the substance was so perfectly homogeneous and skilfully burned, that each brick had a metallic ringing sound, and fractufed with a clear sur face like breaking freestone.