The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1916-05-03

patton, or calling, and eliminate
everything smacking of work in it.
And he has done 80. Down in the
bottom land, where the clay comes
from, there is an upright steam en-
gine, which operates cable, running
through pulleys on post a hundred
yards away. Attached to this cable
is a scoop which is managed by one
negro man. 1t picks up the clay,
and is drawn by the cable to an over
head dump near the engine. Here
it turns over, emptying its load into
small car, operated by another ca
BILE, and which is drawn thereby up
an inclined track to the clay mill.
There it dumps its load into the mill,
and returns to receive the next load
from the scoop, and so it works for
the entire day with the precision of
clock-work, feeding the greedy mill.
The mill itself is operated by a
mixer, who knows how to mix the
clay with the necessary amount of
water, and to turn it out ready to be
made into brick. Now instead of the
r1olds as formerly, the clay comes
out in a constant stream, the thick
ness and width Of a brick, and is
carried along on an endless belt ar
rangement to a wheel with wire cut
ters. The cutter-wheel is about two
feet in diameter, and is made of two
metal plates about two feet in dia-
meter, with a space between them
the. thickness of brick. The stream
of dirt runs between these two cir
cular places, and is cut into bricks of
the required length by means Of
steel wires which are fastened be-
tween the two at the proper intervals
of space. The whole thing is a reve-
lation to a man who has not seen it
work.
The brick are loaded as they are
cut, onto a push cart with two sets
of wheels, setting at right angles to
each other. By the one set, the cart
when loaded is pushed along tracks
until it reaches the air drying sheds.
It is then pushed on the other wheels
and passed to the proper place on
other tracks where the bricks are un-
loaded and placed for drying in the
air. There they remain for six days,
and sometimes seven, until they are
in proper shape to be put into kiln.
At the end of that time they are
placed in the kiln, which is covered
with old bricks and cement and made
almost air tight, except that there
are openings at the bottom reaching
across the entire kiln in which fires
are built for burning the brick. In
order that heat may reach all parts
of the kiln, of course the air-dried
bricks must be laid with openings be-
tween so that the heat may reach all
parts of the kiln. When the kiln is
completed it holds from quarter OF
million to a million bricks, and 1t
must be burned for several days In
order to make the bricks of the pro-
per hardness. It then cools off grad
ually, and when cooled, the outside
covering is taken off and shipments
begin. Several cars a day may be
shipped, and we were informed that
there was demand for all that could
be made and more.
The boys were mostly interested
however, in the little railroad carry
ing the dirt, and all of them wanted
to ride on it, but we were afraid to
let delicate boys like Jack and Hugh
Bradley and son Bill try it for fear
that we might be called on to take
them home in more than one piece.
Getting Down to Fishing.
By the time we had finished in
specting Dyson's great industry the
boys had arrived at the conclusion
that it was time to go fishing, and we
went, but we could not get a bite.
Evidently the fish had had one OF
their men out watching and when ne
saw US and our companions ne de-
cided that it was Ike Walton, himself,
and some of his boys, and the hshes
all ran off and hid somewhere IN the
creek, which could not be located.
We fished for three hours and were
lucky enough to keep our bait un-
molested except by the running wa
ter. By that time we were IN a
humor to do some eating, not to dis
cuss the subject of "cussing." we
went to the headquarters, washed
up and began to get good hungry,
and ready for action, when one OF