bond; and it is sometimes specified that they should be laid in cement. The best partition walls, especially for the upper floor, may be made of perforated bricks, such as have been mentioned above.

I have made a walling tile, with solid headers to bind the wall together, which makes good hollow walls of any thickness according to the length of the heading-bricks. Two of these tiles placed together to form a four-inch partition

wall, are shown in section; these are made in a common tile machine. The heading brick to form

a four-inch wall, and one twelve

inches long, to form a twelve-inch wall, are shown. The heading bricks are made in a common brick mould. It will be seen that there is a small bead on the upper side, and a groove on the lower side of both bricks and tiles; this binds them all fast together. They are all walled on edge. Of course such a wall is not calculated to bear a great weight, but in proportion to its

own weight it is exceedingly strong. The tiles may be twelve to fifteen inches long.

I find the same tiles also to make a very good and dry floor. The bead and groove makes them fit very close, and prevents them from sinking unevenly.

Flues are ordinarily made nine inches square, and sometimes for the kitchen flue fourteen by nine. A better flue than this may be made with nine or ten-inch glazed socket fire-clay draining pipes; but this is expensive; if built into a wall the sockets are of no use, and possibly plain round pipes might be made at such a cost as to allow of their being more generally used for this purpose. The inside of the square brick flue is cored or pargetted, which, of course, is not wanted when the flues are made of pipes.

I do not think that much is to be gained in cottages by any artificial systems of warming or ventilation, but if anything of the kind be desired, the following is far the simplest and most effectual mode of doing it.

Build the flue for the kitchen fire fourteen inches square, and in the middle of this carry up a flue for the smoke, made of ten-inch stoneware socketed pipes carefully jointed with cement; the space between this and the square flue may be used as a hot-air chamber for warming any room in the house, by means of two four or fiveinch flues, communicating the one with the upper and the other with the lower end of the hot-air chamber, and built into the walls.

When flues smoke, the fault, in nine cases out of ten, is in the form of the fireplace, and of the flue within two feet of it. The back and sides of the fireplace ought to go straight up into the chimney, without any breaks or unevenness of surface; and the point at which they enter the chimney, that is, just above the mantelpiece, ought to be the narrowest point in the whole flue. By these means a constant strong draught is secured into the flue, and when the smoke once gets there, it cannot return.

A plan and elevation are here given of the

best form of fireplace for securing the above ob

jects. In this the

back of the fire

place is carried

straight up in

brickwork from the hearth into the flue, and the great heat in the angle at the back produces so strong a draught there, that a fireplace of this kind seldom smokes. These grates are, moreover, very cheap,

and easily set,

and they are well adapted for setting in the corner

of the room, a position which is

often the best possible for the

fireplace, especially in small bedrooms. In such fireplaces, also, the mantel-piece may generally be placed a long way above the grate without its smoking, by which a much larger amount of

heat from the fire finds its way into the room, instead of up the chimney.

The window-cills are usually made of stone, and in many parts of the country it is usual also to use stone window and door-heads, but instead of these last, it is in some places more usual to build arches in the brickwork over the openings. But the window-cills may also be very well made of bricks or tiles, and if properly so constructed,

WINDOW FRAMES

may be as

good as, and in some de

signs more ornamental,

than stone

cills. In the

margin are

shown two

ways of doing this with the materials commonly found in most brickyards. In the first of these bevelled bricks are used, and in the second, nine-inch flooring square, with six-inch flooring