Tile, a plate of baked clay, flat, curved, or hollow, used for covering the floors, roofs, or walls of buildings, and for drains and other purposes. The Assyrians employed them as tablets, writing upon them with a style before baking them. (See Cuneiform Inscriptions.) The Egyptians used tiles for the same purpose, but wrote upon them with ink. They also used tiles for roofing, usually in the form of part of a cylinder, one row being laid with the concave side and the next with the convex side upward, the edge being received in the concavity of its fellow. The Greeks used large flat roofing tiles, sometimes having flanges, with semi-cylindrical ones laid over their lines of junction. The flat tiles were sometimes stamped with brief inscriptions, and the others were ornamented with painted devices. They also used tiles in the construction of tombs and the flues of baths, and for drains. The Romans used them still more generally, and their name teguloe (from tegere, to cover) came to be applied to bricks, which were much more used than tiles. The real distinction between them is the greater fineness of the tile.

The roofing tiles were, like those of the Greeks, large and flat, having flanges rising a little more than two inches above the surface, the junction of the flanges being covered by the arched tile or imbrex. It was customary to stamp the tiles with inscriptions designating the pottery, the manufacturer, the name of the estate which supplied the clay, the name of the reigning emperor or of the consulship, and other matters. Thus they have often served as records of important historical events. The tiles used by the Romans for covering interior walls were large thin squares of terra cotta, generally ornamented on one side with incised devices. The tessellated pavements were formed of small cubical tiles called tesselloe (the diminutive of tesseroe, from the Gr.τέσσαρες, four, having reference to their form). Some of these tesselloe were not more than one fourth of an inch square, and they were laid to form mosaics. The Romans, like the more ancient nations, made use of large flat tiles in the construction of their graves, and also for gravestones with inscriptions. - At the international exhibition at Vienna in 1873 there was a rich assemblage of decorative tiles of several countries, many of the specimens being from Great Britain, where the art is now practised in great perfection.

Among the latter were Roman tiles and tesselloe from mosaic pavements recently excavated at Chichester. There were also glazed decorated tiles (see Encaustic) from Egypt and Assyria, and Saracenic tiles from Spain; also antique tiles from India and from the mosques of Samarcand of the 14th and loth centuries. In the Indian tiles, brought by Dr. Leitner from Lahore, and taken from old monuments, the colors retained their original vividness. The manufacture in Great Britain dates from mediaeval times, doubtless due to imitation of the Roman pottery, and may be divided into two periods. The most ancient tiles were probably made between 1290 and 1380, and those of the second period during the prevalence of the perpendicular style of building. Numerous kilns have been found in the Malvern hills, and it is supposed that Tewkesbury abbey and Worcester and Gloucester cathedrals were furnished by them with tiles. The manufacture is said to have continued in Worcestershire to about 1G40. Some of the earliest specimens of tiles in the British museum are from the ruined churches in Norfolk. The designs upon the tiles at that time were chiefly sacred symbols and inscriptions, heraldic devices, and monograms.

The material is ordinary coarse red clay, the designs being formed of a lighter-colored clay contained in incisions in the body, and afterward covered with a glazing. - The manufacture of tiles in Holland commenced at a very early period, and in the 18th century large quantities were exported to England for fireplaces. They were also brought to America in the 17th and 18th centuries for fireplaces, hearths, and roofs. Many of them were highly ornamented with various designs. The discovery of transferring designs by printing from paper to earthenware about 1752 created numerous imitations in England, and the demand in that country was in a great measure supplied by home-printed tiles. - What are called dry tiles are made in Great Britain by Prosser's method. The material is dried and reduced to powder in a mill, when it is placed on slabs of plaster of Paris slightly moistened. It is then passed through fine sieves and subjected to intense pressure in steel boxes, from which the tiles are taken to a hot room and dried for a week or two and then ornamented, glazed, and fired. Drain tiles may be made of ordinary brick clay by various simple machines, moved either by power or hand, usually the latter, as the process is very simple.

They are all made upon the principle of forcing the prepared clay through a cylindrical or semi-cylindrical tube over a mandrel. Some of them work the material after it has been passed through a pug mill, while others consist of a pug mill and tile machine combined. The uncombined machines cost from $100 to $200, and are capable of turning out by man power from 200 to 300 two-inch tiles per hour, or with one horse about 5,000 large tiles per day. The subsoil where drainage is desirable often contains clay of a suitable quality for their manufacture, and the machines are then taken out upon or near the fields to be drained. (See Drainage, and "Farm Drainage," by Henry F. French, New York, 1865).