Alexandria Gazette

Few people, except builders, are aware of the advantage of wetting bricks before laying them. A wall twelve inches thick built up of good mortar with bricks well soaked, is stronger in every respect than one sixteen inches thick built up dry. The reason of this is that if the bricks are saturated with water they will not abstract from the mortar the moisture which is necessary to its crystallization, and on the contrary they will unite chemically with the mortar and become almost as solid as a rock. On the other hand, if the bricks are put up dry, they immediately take up all the moisture from the mortar, and leave it too dry to harden, and the consequence is, that when a building of this description is taken down, or tumbles down of its own accord the mortar falls from it like so much sand.—N. Y. Sun.