A good brick is uniform in size; standard, 9 by 41/2 by 21/2 in.; weight about 7 lb. each = 110 lb. per foot cube; is rectangular, true faced, but only one end and one side need be smooth; has no print sinking on either face, but a hollow on one or both beds.  When saturated with water, a brick should not absorb more than 20 per cent, of its own weight of water, should absorb it reluctantly, and part with it freely at ordinary temperatures.  It should be uniformly burnt, should be sound, free from cracks, flaws, stones, lumps of any kind, but especially lumps of lime, should be of a good color for its sort (whether red, yellow, or white), should have a metallic clang when two bricks are struck together; when broken should be sound right through, should be tough and pasty in texture, not granular, and should require repeated blows to break it, rather than one hard blow (such bricks will withstand cartage and handling best).  So much for bricks.  To make brickwork, however, another ingredient is required—­namely, mortar or cement.

All mortars and, in fact, all the cementing materials used (except bituminous ones) in bricklaying have lime as their base, and depend upon the setting quality of quicklime, which has to be mixed with sand or some suitable substitute for it, to make mortars.  Limes and cements are far too wide a subject to be dealt with as part of an evening’s lecture on another topic, and no doubt they will hereafter form the subject of a lecture or lectures.  To-night I propose only to remind you that there are such substances as these, and that they possess certain qualities and are obtainable and available for the bricklayer’s purposes, without attempting an investigation into the chemistry of cements, or their manufacture, etc.  Ordinarily, brickwork may be divided into brickwork in mortar and in cement; but there are many qualities of mortar and several sorts of cement.  Mortar made with what are called fat or rich limes—­that is to say, nearly pure lime, such as is got by calcining marble or pure chalk—­sets slowly, with difficulty, and is rarely tenacious.  Burnt clay or brick reduced to powder improves the setting of such lime, especially if the two materials be calcined together; so will an admixture of cement.  Mortar made with what is known as slightly hydraulic lime, that is to say, lime containing a small proportion of clay, such as the gray stone lime of Dorking, Merstham, and that neighborhood, sets well, and is tenacious and strong.  Mortar made with hydraulic lime, that is to say, lime with a considerable admixture of clay, such as the lias lime, sets under water or in contact with wet earth.  It is best to use this lime ground to powder, and not to mix so much sand with it as is used with stone lime.  A sort of mortar called selenitic mortar, the invention of the late General Scott, has been made use of in many of the buildings of the School Board for London, and was first employed on a large scale in the erection of the Albert Hall.  The peculiarity consists in the addition of a small dose of plaster of Paris (sulphate of lime) very carefully introduced and intimately mixed.  The result is that the mortar so made sets rapidly, and is very hard.