The whole kiln is covered with a shed, open at the sides, the roof boards of which are removable. There are such brick kilns on the road to Paterson, N. J., and dozens of them at Haverstraw, on the Hudson River. Nowadays clays are used which when I was a boy were thrown aside. Tapestry bricks and all kinds of odd colored bricks are now made from clays which come out mottled and stained with impurities. Clay for fire bricks is found at Bonhamtown and at Weber's.
Fire clay contains a large proportion of kaolin.
These bricks stand great heat but are not so hard nor do they have the tensile strength or water resisting power of common bricks. When I was a boy the men in the clay banks got ten or eleven cents an hour and worked ten hours a day. I think they could buy about as much with their dollar ten as they can with the wages they get now. The spoil or strippings from the clay banks sometimes present a problem as to what can be done with it. Usually, the strippings are used to fill exhausted pits.