It was only at first, however, that there was a scarcity of bricks and even then the difficulty in obtaining them was more a matter of transportation than of supply. Brickmakers and bricklayers were among the first artisans brought over and from the very infancy of the colony, as just stated, brick-making was encouraged. Indeed, at an early date, bricks became an important article of export to Bermuda, whence limestone was fetched back in exchange. There was abundance of brick to supply the home demand and the obstacle in the way of its wider use by the first generation or two of planters was the difficulty of getting it from the kilns to the sites where it was to be used and not, as some suppose, the necessity of importing it from England. It is pointed out in another chapter that the so-called “English brick” was merely brick made according to English dimensions and so termed to distinguish it from brick fashioned after the Dutch pattern. Very few of the old brick buildings were constructed of imported material and, under ordinary circumstances, it would have been the height of folly to send overseas for it, even though it might come as ballast. In Virginia, bricks were rated from eight to fifteen shillings a thousand while, in England, between 1650 and 1700, their price was eighteen shillings and upward a thousand. As the seventeenth century advanced bricks became increasingly plentiful in the South. After Sir Thomas Dale’s arrival and the establishment of his new enterprise at Henrico City, the first-floor walls of the houses in that place were built of brick burned in the kilns that were there set up, but when Secretary Kemp, in 1638, built a brick house at Jamestown, it was probably the first dwelling entirely constructed of brick in the South. After this, other brick houses were erected in Jamestown and, subsequently, Governour Berkeley built himself a brick house at Green Spring, about two miles distant. It was not usual, however, to employ brick very extensively till towards the end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth when ample fortunes had accumulated and transportation possibilities had somewhat improved. Even then, the use of brick was by no means universal but was largely dependent upon local conditions, although there was unquestionably a preference for it over wood when it could readily be come by.