Second.--The next operation is for moulding and pressing the brick. To take the place of that ancient and still used mode of filling a mould of a certain size by the hands with a lump of soft clay, scraping off the surplus, and then dumping the mould upon a drying floor, a great variety of machines have been invented. In some the pug mill is arranged horizontally to feed out the clay in the form of a long horizontal slab, which is cut up into proper lengths to form the bricks. Some machines are in the form of a large horizontal revolving wheel, having the moulds arranged in its top face, each mould charged with clay as the wheel presents it under the discharging spout of the grinding mill, and then the clay is pressed by pistons or plungers worked by a rocking beam, and adapted to descend and fit into the mould at stated intervals; or the moulds, carried in a circular direction, may have movable bottom plates, which may be pressed upwards successively by pistons attached to them and raised by inclines on which they travel, forcing the clay against a large circular top plate, and in the last part of the movement carrying the pressed brick through an aperture to the top of the plate, where it is met by and carried away on an endless apron. In some machines two great wheels mesh together, one carrying the moulds in its face, and the other the presser plate plungers, working in the former, the bricks being finally forced out on to a moving belt by the action of cam followers, or by other means. In others the moulds are passed, each beneath a gravity-descending or cam-forced plunger, the clay being thus stamped by impact into form; or in other forms the clay in the moulds may be subjected to successive pressure from the cam-operated pistons arranged horizontally and on a line with the discharging belt. Third, the drying and burning of the brick.--The old methods were painfully slow and tedious. A long time was occupied in seasoning the clay, and then after the bricks were moulded, another long time was necessary to dry them, and a final lengthy period was employed to burn them in crude kilns. These old methods were too slow for modern wants. But they still are in vogue alongside of modern inventions, as in all ages the use of old arts and implements have continued along by the side of later inventions and discoveries. No useful contrivances are suddenly or apparently ever entirely supplanted. The implements of the stone age are still found in use by some whose environment has deprived them of the knowledge of or desire to use better tools. The single ox pulling the crooked stick plough, or other similar ancient earth stirrer, and Ruth with her sickle and sheaves, may be found not far from the steam plough and the automatic binder.