Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1819-12-18
BRICK MACHINES.
FROM THE PHILADELPHIA AURORA.

We had an opportunity on Friday, of
Witnessing the operation of a machine for
Saving labor and perfecting the erecu-
ton Of bricks for building, the produc-
ton of the genius of Mr.. .4dam Stuart,
who is the brother Of Mr. Stuart, whose
uncommon talents in the construction of
musical instruments have excited so
much interest.
At the first view, we found it so unlike
any ideas we had conceived of what
might be contrived for such purpose;
or rather, it was so unlike the method of
manufacture by the hand and mould, in
the common way, that we could not at
once enter into the method of its opera
ton. A little patient observation soon
developed its extraordinary simplicity,
and, we may well say, its wonderful effect.
Those who have seen the machinery
for manufacturing screws from the raw
iron rod, may conceive an idea of the RAJ
pidity of the production of bricks !;
though tie principle of the power thus
produced is much more simple and
equally prolific.
The process we saw in performance
was exactly as follows; the power we
shall describe afterwards. INTO chest
resembling the hopper of common
grist mill, two men poured constantly a
quantity of loose clay, as it was dug from
the earth, without any mixture, or moist
ening, Or kneadlng, or any other OF the
tedious process Of the common art OF
making. The machine was in
motion, and had a double power, that is,
the bricks were made and moulded, and
delivered from two apertures, without
any other aid Of human hands than the
throwing of the clay into the hopper,
when, in few seconds from the aperture
below the hopper, brick was delivered
upon an endless web, which revolved on
wheels intended for the purpose, and
which, in the rotation of the machinery,
carried the brick gently several yards
from the place of delivery, ready formed,
of solid texture, almost sufficiently dry
for burning; and to each of the aper-
lures delivered the bricks with sufficient
rapidly 10 occupy two men in taking
them off and piling them.
The machinery was put in motion by
a small steam engine OF two horse power,
attended by two men and boy; two
horizontal beams, supported by tourstout
cheeks, sustain the work. at one end
the machinery of wheels and levers are
set in motion by the steam power; and
the hopper in which the clay is thrown
stands above the wheel and the two le-
vers by which the power is produced.
The levers act alternately, and in a
horizontal direction; one eccentric
wheel, which appears to produce an &C
ton like the form of parabollc curve,
works on small friction wheel in the
middle of d compound lever, which
descends in this eccentric wheel to an
obtuse angle of about Is degrees, an in
clination which may be obviously di-
minished or augmented as may be de-
sired; the rotation of the same wheel
which depresses the inequality OF its
periphery, or, to express it in other
terms, the wheel being narrow from the
axis on the side where the angle is pro-
duced, and broader in that which is to
raise or convert the angle into a straight
line, the end of this lever, by being
brought from an angle like the elbow OF
the human arm, to strait line like the
arm extended, produces that pressure
on the earth delivered into the hopper,
so that it at once forms the brick, and
protrudes it through an iron socket, Of
the shape Of the brick, and passes it