It is best, where you have the drainage to do it, in putting down an undergeared dry-pan to get your foundations out suffi ciently deep with walls around the same so that the engineer can go down the steps and walk all around. He will then not only go down more frequently, but will be able and disposed to examine the same. This little extra expense in depth will be the best-saved money you can make in the building of your works. If you can get the drainage and this extra depth is given, the undergeared dry-pan is by far the best. If you can not get the necessary drainage and put it down in the way de scribed, then the overhead arrangement is preferable.
From the dry-pan we next come to the elevators and wet pan. In examining many fire-brick works we see the same primitive way of wheeling the clay from the wet-pan to the tables, which means additional men and the space occupied by the runs on the dry-floor lost. Amongst the improvements of modern fire-brick works may be mentioned the clay belt—a description of which will probably be interesting to those who have not seen it in operation—the moulders' tables being all along and in line with the wall, as also the wet-pan. A belt conveyor runs along the side of pan and tables at a sufficient height above the latter, so as to leave ample room for the de livery of the clay. On each side of the belt are wood sides, in the bottom of which are affixed rollers on which the belt travels. In these wood sides opposite each moulding-table is a gate ; that is, a piece of the side is cut out and attached in place again with a pair of hinges, so that it can be opened across the trough just over the belt. The gate being longer than the width of the trough, it will open at an angle of about 45°. The mill man discharges a pan of clay on the belt, the sides keeping it in place—a boy in charge of the belt opens a gate opposite one of the tables ; the clay coming into contact with it at the angle before named, slides along it and off the belt on to the table. The boy then closes the gate, closing up the side, and opens the gate opposite the next table to receive the following charge, and so in rotation. Where seen in work, this belt was supplying clay for five tables and a machine.
Another plan of conveying the clay from pan to tables, which is still better, is to empty the pan of clay into a self-dump car, which is then run over a light tram-road over the tables and dumped down the chute at the table where required. One lad
in this way will supply clay for 20,000 brick per day. The point in the latter method of conveying the clay is to have the necessary elevation. The way to do this is to take the clay up sufficiently high when it is in the elevators from the dry-pan, so that the clay may be delivered into the bins at a height to allow the wet or pug-pans to be fixed high enough to discharge the clay in the dump-car. It is much easier with this arrangement to discharge the clay down to the tables than wheel it up, and only requires a greater length of elevator-belt and to have the pug pan about four feet above the upper floor. It is in such arrangements as these where the cost of manufacture is reduced. In the construction of the works we next come to the main building or factory where the brick are moulded, pressed and dried ; this building will be from sixty to seventy feet wide from side opposite the mills and of required length. The ends should not be permanently closed, but so put together that any exten sion may be made at one or both ends as might be desired, and so keep the moulding-room in one open compact building. If thus arranged, the whole of the work is under the manager's eye at one time. Where the roof is high and wet-pan elevated as described, it is advisable to economize what space you can in the same by putting down a floor over the the posts sup porting the roof, sufficient flooring being put down to make the blocks and tiles. The heat from the floor below will not only dry them, but will do so very regularly. With respect to the covering for the roof, shingles, felting of every kind, sheet-iron and galvanized, corrugated iron, have all been tried, all of which have proved failures except shingles. No roof covering is more severely tried than that over a brick dry-floor ; the heat and steam continually rising and hanging under the roof makes all feltings rotten and short, so that they split when the boards to which they are nailed expand or contract by the action of heat and damp. Sheet iron from the same causes quickly rusts through and leaks. Galvanized iron is but little better, as the coating peels off and it then rusts. For a roof covering to resist the action of heat and steam inside and sun and rain outside, there is nothing equal to shingles, except a clay tile roof, which would be found too expensive. In connection with the mould ing-room, we next come to the important part of it, viz.: the dry-floor.