Chinese Construction
Methods and Materials

Loading Clay for Bricks

These five men are loading the wagon pulled by a small tractor with refractory soil (clay). Remember that the Yellow River only some 30 miles north has dumped yellow loess soil by flooding for millions of years. So that the soil is many meters thick with that soil. The man at the top has an iron bar to cave off the shear walls for the men below to shovel into the wagon. The rural cooperative owns this land and uses the top 20 feet to make bricks. After the soil is removed it is smoothed and then the land is used to farm again, just lower.