The following plan of a furnace or kiln for burning tiles has been found very convenient:—
[Fig. 173.], front view, A A, B B, the solid walls of the furnace; a a a, openings to the ash-pit, and the draught hole; b b b, openings for the supply of fuel, furnished with a sheet-iron door. Fig. 174. Plan of the ash-pits and air channels c c c. The principal branch of the ash-pit D D D, is also the opening for taking out the tiles, after removing the grate; E the smoke flue. [Fig. 175.] Plan of the kiln seen from above. The grates H H H. The tiles to be fired are arranged upon the spaces f f f f.
[Fig. 176.] is the plan and section of one of the grates upon a much larger scale than in the preceding figures.
Mechanical brick moulding.—Messrs. Lyne and Stainford obtained in August, 1825, a patent for a machine for making a considerable number of bricks at one operation. It consists, in the first place, of a cylindrical pug-mill of the kind usually employed for comminuting clay for bricks and tiles, furnished with rotatory knives, or cutters, for breaking the lumps and mixing the clay with the other materials of which bricks are commonly made. Secondly, of two movable moulds, in each of which fifteen bricks are made at once; these moulds being made to travel to and fro in the machine for the purpose of being alternately brought under the pug-mill to be fitted with the clay, and then removed to situations where plungers are enabled to act upon them. Thirdly, in a contrivance by which the plungers are made to descend, for the purpose of compressing the material and discharging it from the mould in the form of bricks. Fourthly, in the method of constructing and working trucks which carry the receiving boards, and conduct the bricks away as they are formed.