The first building materials used by man were made of wood and stone. But the use of bricks followed soon, even before the first writings of history. Today bricks are still one of the main building materials.
What is the material with which bricks are made? Simple earth.
Many natural forces - such as climate, glaciers, volcanoes and chemical reactions - eventually undo the rocks, producing a kind of fine-grained earth called clay. Clay is very manageable when wet, and can be molded into any shape. A brick is made by wetting the clay, pressing it into a mold, and finally baking this clay in a kiln until it hardens.
Currently most bricks are made by machines, which place the clay in large columns, which are cut into pieces with the desired brick sizes.
Most common bricks are red due to the iron oxides in the clay used to make them. Adding other substances to the clay produces bricks of other colors.
The largest brick factory in the world, in England, can produce 16 million bricks in a week.
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