Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1917 — Two Billion Bricks a Year. [ARTICLE]

Two Billion Bricks a Year.

At the annual meeting of the American Ceramic society, J. B. Shaw of Alfred, N. ¥., told of some very successful tests he had made In making paving brick from blast furnace slag. These bricks were worth about $35 per thousand In 1915. They may be successfully made of almost any blastfurnace sj,ag at a cost of $5 to $7 per thousand. lie figures that there is at present available about 16,000,000 tons of slag annually in the United States, after leaving 2,000,000 tons for cement manufacture. This would provide 2,000,000,000 bricks for permanent good roads every year—say, for 1,000 miles annually of 50-foot road. • Time and again failure has been encountered rn the effort td make paving brick in this manner, but the problem seems to be fairly well worked out now. The slag must be treated hot as it comes from the and the brick must be heated out of contact with air or steam lest It become brittle. Ellwood Hendrick.