Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/198

 brick—had been taken, under competitive public tender, by several conjoined co-operative partnerships of working brickmakers. The quick turn-over, by means of universally applied machinery, made possible the working of great contracts of such a kind upon comparatively small capital, and thus gave, in one direction at least, a decided advantage to these co-partners, whose individual members were themselves the direct labour element in the business. By this time, also, brickmaking had entirely emerged from its old toil and drudgery; while, by aid of ever improving machinery, the output had become so enormously increased, expedited, and cheapened, that bricks of all sorts and sizes were being used well-nigh everywhere and for everything; so that this trade, in particular, had thus advanced to altogether unprecedented proportions, importance, and prosperity.

In the present case, the successful tenderers had based their close calculations mainly upon the help of certain recently improved portions of brickmaking machinery, which were only to be had of the very best quality across the Atlantic, and from whence, of course, they had been duly ordered. But although, at that time, our shipping was alike powerful, commodious and safe, to an unprecedented degree, the storms, as well as other meteorologic extremes of the old times, had not yet been tamed down, as at present, by our great sea-reclaiming processes, which have so contracted the evaporable surface, and diminished that cloud and vapour of our atmosphere, which was wont to be concerned in such pranks with our weather. On this particular occasion, so terrible a storm arose, that all the finer brickmaking machinery in question, handy