The Nenana news., 1918-01-26
NENANA TO HAVE
 A NEW INDUSTRY
By John C. Murphy

We are told that one of the first efforts of man at architecture was to mold wet clay into cubes for the erection of walls and houses. And unbelievable as it may seem, there exists today in perfect preservation, sun-dried bricks, made by the Baby lonians and Egyptians over 4,000 years ago. On some of these are valuable inscriptions relating to the cause of the making. The cases are many in which straw was used with the clay to give it greater
 coherence. .n the Bible, in Exodus
 l, IA; V, 4-19, narration is given us of the Egyptians and Israelites
 brick-makers. But nearer at home, and although scarcely less ancient, are the adobe bricks of Yucatan and
 Mexico. And wonderful is the story that can be seen, at the present day, in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico,
 Texas and California, hundreds of these "adobe houses," and although over 300 years old, are still inhab- ited. We have authentic evidence that the Aztecs and other American aborigines were adopts at using this material and constructed wonderful and enduring architecture out of it. Strange as it may seem, we have no means of knowing the accurate
 number of bricks manufactured in the United States, but conservative figure would be about 25 billion. Of this enormous output, over S1,000
 coo worth is exported annually.
 With marvellous strides has this great and valuable industry grown in the past few years in the United States, and yet the demand is more than the make. In many parts of the United States the proper and right kind of raw material is scarce or may be interesting to learn that there are now in the United States more than 100 different varieties of brick made Almost any conceivable size, shap or hardness of brick can now be gotten. Of course, there is a great variance in the raw material. Common brick for rough wall work and filling comes from soft clays, Fine face-brick comes from higher grade clay. Fire brick and vitrified brick, both imperishable, is formed or made by the grinding up of shale, fire-clay, quartz, spar, calcine, lime, ochre and other similar hard ma terials, by powerful machinery. Fire brick is used exclusively between the beams and joists of the modern skyscrapper building, to make it i'm
 previous to fire, and as it has been severely heated in its making, a fur ther heat in any fire has little affect
 on it. Vitrified brick, as we know. is largely for street pavements
 and wears for years.
 Then again, the brick manufac- i turer has another source of income. ! in the making of terra-cotta tiling, : drainage pipes and beautiful colored
 glazed bricks, used so much now-a- days for mantles and ornamental
 work generally.
 It is likely that between 70 and so per cent of all the brick made is | the rough and semi-rough for wall
 work. To day most stringent fire laws in the large cities of the United
 States, compel the use of brick, stone
 or iron in the erection of buildings
 within the fire limits. In many cities private homes are built of
 brick, as cheaper and more lasting
 than lumber. The slow, laborious
 and old hand methods of making brick have given away for up-to-date machinery methods, where one or
 dinary machine can turn out 100000
 finished brick per day.
 : Now brick-clay proper consists
 largely of hydrated silicate of Alu-
 nina, with iron in varying quanti- i ties. and sand or free silica. Ii
 varies greatly in adhesiveness, hard
 ness and value. Suitable brick clay | is not so common as one would imagine. A community or city that
 has it contiguous is indeed fortunate
 It means tens of thousands of dol lars if utilized.
 ! How about Alaska? We'll, up to
 the present, it has been found in but
 few localities And among these few, l was delighted to know that
 Nenana had immense bodies of high
 grade brick, terra-cotta, tile and