niformity of
appearance is preserved, and whole bricks are retained on the returns. King
closers are used at rebated openings formed in walls in Flemish bond, and
by reason of the greater width of the back or "tail," add strength to the
work. They are cut on the splay so that the front end is half the width of
a header and one side half the length of the brick. An example of their use
will be seen in fig. 15. In walls of almost all thicknesses above 9 in.,
except in the [v.04 p.0525] English bond, to preserve the transverse and
yet not destroy the longitudinal bond, it is frequently necessary to use
half bricks. It may be taken as a general rule that a brick should never be
cut if it can be worked in whole, for a new joint is thereby created in a
construction, the difficulty of which consists in obviating the debility
arising from the constant recurrence of joints. Great insistence must be
laid on this point, especially at the junctions of walls, where the
admission of closers already constitutes a weakness which would only be
increased by the use of other bats or fragments of bricks.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Flemish Bond.]

Another method of bonding brickwork, instead of placing the bricks in
alternate courses of headers and stretchers, places them alternately as
headers and stretchers in the same course, the appearance of the course
being the same on each face. This is called "Flemish bond." Closers are
necessary to this variety of bond. From fig. 6 it will be seen that, owing
to the comparative weakness of the transverse tie, and the numbers of half
bricks required to be used and the thereby increased number of joints, this
bond is not so perfect nor so strong as English. The arrangements of the
face joints, however, presenting in Flemish bond a neater appearance than
in English bond, it is generally selected for the external walls of
domestic and other buildings where good effect is desirable. In buildings
erected for manufacturing and similar purposes, and in engineering works
where the greatest degree of strength and compactness is considered of the
highest importance, English bond should have the preference.

A compromise is sometimes made between the two above-mentioned bonds. For
the sake of appearance the bricks are laid to form Flemish bond on the
face, while the backing is of English bond, the object being to combine the
best features of the two bonds. Undoubtedly the result is an improvement on
Flemish bon