Brick Basics Mystery Cache

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As a result of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC) was formed. Although initially blocked by the local brickmakers and bricklayers union, steel framing is now a requirement in any new brick construction. Besides construction practices, brick fabrication has evolved as well. Here are some other Brick Basics.

1. The natural color of a brick can be determined by the temperature when firing (the higher the temperature then the darker the brick) as well as the mineral content of the clay used.
2. The Great Wall of China, constructed around 210 BCE, is made of 3,873,000,000 individual bricks.
3. Bricks in their most primitive form were not fired but were hardened by being dried in the sun.
4. The Egyptians and the Greeks had a plentiful stone and marble supply so they used bricks to a limited extent.
5. The first known bricks have been dated to nearly 7,500 BC in the Upper Tigris area of south eastern Turkey.
6. The first bricks in the English colonies in North America were probably made in Virginia as early as 1612.
7. The Romans usually concealed their brickwork beneath a decorative stone or marble facing but the Byzantines had devised a technique for exposing the bricks and giving them a full decorative expression.
8. American building bricks are rectangular blocks with the standard dimensions of about 2 1/4 by 3 3/4 by 8 in. (5.7 by 9.5 by 20.3 cm).
9. Roman bricks were often stamped with the mark of the legion that supervised their production.