No_1_May_and_June__1951 — Page 29

鸭

KEEN SANG

BRICKWORKS

HONG KONG

A view of the tunnel kiln, showing the temperature control panel,

The art of brick-making may per- The reason for its popularity and

haps be considered as a legacy that has been transmitted to us from re- motest antiquity. The Old Testament itself furnishes us with proof that bricks were employed in Egypt as a construction medium. The discoveries made in the Valley of the Nile prove the very early use of this form of building material, while oral and writ- ten tradition clearly shows that from the most ancient times, baked bricks have been used in the building of tem- ples, fortresses and castles. As a mat- ter of fact, the excavations at Tello, in Chaldea, prove conclusively that bricks were in use as far back as forty centuries before Christ.

The knowledge of brick making followed the Romans in their victorious march to the corners of their empire;

from Britain through to Africa, and from Spain through to Persia. The Arabs and the Moors certainly under- stood this mode of construction, and the many historical monuments erected by them bear witness to the wide understanding in the use of brick dis- played by the architects of antiquity.

its usefulness lies in the fact that basically it is a very uncomplicated material to manufacture. It is simply clay pressed together into a convenient shape and baked to harden. The modern manufacture of bricks that are consistent in strength and quality, and constant in size, shape and colour is, however, by no means a simple matter. The difficulties encountered by the brick-maker are due either to incon- sistency in the chemical and physical properties of the clay, or to inefficiency in operation of the kilns.

To achieve the manufacture of the perfect brick, modern brickworks use clay mixing and extruding machines. which are practically automatic, but the human elentent still plays a very important part in the selection of the clays which must be blended in proper proportions to produce the ideal mix- ture, and in the loading of the kilns to ensure even burning throughout.

We have two large modern brick plants in Hong Kong one of which is The Keen Sang Brick Works Ltd., with which we are immediately con- cerned. It occupies upwards of seventy acres in the Castle Peak district of the New Territories. The original works were erected and the kilns designed and built by the Credit Foncier D'Extreme Orient in 1931, but this original installation was very severely

The scope of the application of brickwork in all forms of modern con- struction has of course been tremen- dously extended proportionate to the increase in size and the intricacy of design of modern buildings compared to the original simple structures of ancient days. But no matter what the design of the building or the purpose for which it is used, brick has been found the one basic material which damaged during the Japanese occupa- has always satisfactorily fulfilled the tion. functions required of it.

It has been rebuilt and modern- ised under the personal direction of

The clay mixing and extruding machine. Mr. Lee Ching, the Managing Director of the Company and has been operating at maximum capacity during the past few years.

There are several types of clay obtainable within the company's pre- cincts, some of it fine enough to be used for pottery work. This clay is brought from the pits by rail dump- trucks and after the initial process of refining and cleaning is blended in

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