red, and the style of decoration and its nature does not admit of "pug gilding are reproduced in all their original fulness. The true spirit of the old workmen has been caught by thrower and modeller, and the consequence is that, "but for a slight differ ence in the composition of the 'body' and the modern mark, the productions might almost be taken to be genuine old examples." Passing through the works we arrive at the clay and stone yard. Here we are confronted by numerous pyramids of Cornish granite, flint, felspar, and clay. There is not the slightest connection, so far as an ordinary vls. itor can distinguish, between these very ordinary wayside-looking materials and the elegantly designed and elaborately colored vases in the fin ished-goods department. Yet the connection is nevertheless very real. From the yard we pass to a large rough and ready building, the home of innumerable vats fitted with runners of Bakewell stone, ceaselessly running round and round, moved by centrifugal force. to The running and the roaring gether for they are not by any means noiseless runners-is not without due effect upon the material run upon or "run down." The vats contain water, and into the liquid proportions of dry china-clay, Cornish stone, flint, and ground calcined bone are thrown, all being ground together into the finest of fine powders. For ten days the ruthless runners do their work, and then the mixture is drained off by means of spouts into vats on a lower level, only to travel yet lower down to find an "ark" or store-room. Thence, by a system of spouts and pipes, into a press, constructed of a series of filter-cloths and wooden cases, which squeeze out and run off the water. After the tremendous pressure has rid the clay of moisture, it is unpacked from the cloths and rolled up, presenting an appearance suggestive of a sheet of india-rubber. If the clay be such as we have been describing, china-clay, it is "wedged" by hand, i.e., beaten with wooden hammers, as mill" treatment. It is not, however, all china-clay that is drained of moisture. Some is used in a liquid state. being poured into plaster moulds, the plaster acting as an absorbent. Hence we adjourn to one of the work-rooms. Here we see men at work, standing or sitting, as the case may be, before their revolving plaster discs, each disc fitted on to an iron foot or pedestal. Upon the disc each artist builds up his lump of clay according to the design beside him, and on a larger scale than the finished piece will appear. The disparity in size is due to the fact that the clay shrinks in the burning, losing one-fifth of its bulk. Fascinating as is the progress of the artist-modellers' work, we do not hesitate to leave watching it while we chat with the head of the department about models, moulds, and working moulds, for he has much to tell us. "From this model, when perfect, a block-mould will be taken," he says. "The block-mould is superior to the working mould, inasmuch as it is always retained, whereas after, say, twenty to twenty-four pieces have been made from the latter it is worn out, and therefore destroyed. From the block-mould a 'clay press' clay mould-is formed; and from this again a plaster mould. This last is made in sections, the number of pieces corresponding with the elaborateness of the design, and the consequent difficulty of getting the pieces out." Each section is carefully numbered. All block-moulds are also marked, and have distinct places assigned them; thus any required design can be found at the shortest notice and its like produced. Anything less than this would result in the direst confu sion. From the modelling to the throwing room, and we are in full view of the modern application of the ancient handicraft of throwing. The skilful manipulations of the thrower were racily described by the late Charles Dickens in Household Words for 1852. He wrote: "In regard of the potter, popularly so called," says the plate, “you don't mean to say you cannot call him up before you, sitting with his attendant woman, at his potter's wheel-a disc about the size of a dinner-plate, revolving on two drums. slowly or quickly, as he wills-who made you a complete breakfast set for a bachelor, as a good humored little off-hand joke? You remember how he took up as much dough as he wanted, and throwing it on his wheel, in a moment fashioned it into a teacup-caught up more clay and made a saucer a larger dab and whirled it into a tea-pot-winked at a smaller dab and converted it into the lid of the tea-pot, accurately fitting by the measurement of his eye alone-coaxed a middle-sized dab for two seconds, broke it, turned it over at the rim, and made a milk-pot-laughed and turned out a slop basin-coughed and provided for the sugar? Neither, I think, are you obvious of the newer mode of making various articles, but especially basins, according to which im provement a mould revolves instead of a disc. For you must remember," says the plate, "how you saw the mould of a little basin spinning round and round, and how the workman smoothed and pressed a handful of dough upon it, and how, with an instrument called a profile (a piece of wood representing the profile of a basin's foot), he cleverly scraped and carved the thing which makes the base of any such basin, and then took the basin off the lathe like a doughey skull-cap to be dried, and afterwards (in what is called a green state) to be put into a second lathe, there to be finished and burnished with a steel burnisher." able tools upon the turning lathes after the clay has become about as stiff as cheese. The speed attained by an expert "thrower" is astonishing, a few minutes sufficing to turn out quite a handsome collection of bottles and cylindrical articles. We were in. formed that a good workman can produce many hundreds in a day. The turner completes the thrower's work; he does for the outside what the thrower does for the inside. It is worthy of note that only plain and circular articles are thrown. All ornamental articles and those not quite circular are cast, that is, made in moulds. In a There is a great deal to see and learn in the casting room. Ranged on a long bench running the entire length of the room we saw numerous small plaster-moulds, and into them the "caster" was pouring from a jugshaped vessel liquid china-clav, known in this state as "slip." short time the plaster-mould will have absorbed the moisture, leaving the clay dry and in the requisite form. This one, I think, is all ready to be removed," and setting down the vessel the caster lifts the upper portion of the mould from the lower portion. and a finely shaped jug handle appears to view. "Over here," he says as he walked to the other end of the room, "we are casting elaborate vases. This vase," showing one designated to imitate the productions of the Renaissance period, "is made in sixty individual castings, and, of course, for each casting a separate mould is essential." When the castings are sufficiently stiff, they are dusted over with what might, for all that appears to sight, be white castor sugar, SO smooth and white is it, but what is, in reality, ground calcined flint. It is trying to credulity to hear it asserted by those who "should know," that the snowy powder is the produce of the common black flinty-natured stones. Ancient as are the principles of this industry, the introduction of steampower has aided materially in the improvement of the manipulation, the thrower being able to devote his whole attention to the formation of the ware itself. The delicate propor- as familiar to suburban pedestrians tions, mouldings and bands, of many as road-mud in early spring. The obvessels fashioned on the potter's ject of this flint dusting is to prevent wheel, are outlined and cut by suit- the clay pieces adhering, or soiling, when in the kilns. From the casting- damper be down, through holes in the room to the store-rooms to await the first firing the ware is carried. Before entering the kilns we peep into the "placing" shop, and here observe the "setters" at work. The labors of the setter are of the utmost importance, and he had need be an earnest and careful man, possessed of true hand and eye, and able to calculate size and distance to a nicety. Standing before a bench with pyramids of rough fire-clay cases piled near by, he draws one of the cases to him. fills it with the powdered calcined flint, in which, working his hands backwards, he "makes a bed," and, this completed, he "sets" the plate in the bed. Very true must be the setting, very nice allowance being made that the bed fit the plate after the baking, and not when first laid in. The firing process follows the "placing." There is no need here to describe the shape of an oven, as every one knows that potters' ovens resemble the inverted bowl of a manytimes-magnified tobacco pipe. Inside one of these ovens we step. It is stacking ready for firing. In it we count eight brick “bags,” as the flues are technically termed, and note that arranged all round the "dome-shaped cavern are innumerable columns of an unearthly order of architecture, supporting nothing and squeezed close together." The pillars, upon examination, prove to be constituted of vessels of coarse clay, shaped after the style of hollow cheeses, or even bandboxes. Each vessel is distinguished as a sagger, and the saggers, after being filled with various articles of pottery, are ranged tier above tier, the bottom of each successive vessel serving for the cover of the one below. When the whole kiln is filled up, the doorway, or aperture, is blocked up with clay and cement; and the gradual fire is kindled-the fire which is to work such wonders upon the unre sisting clay. For sixty hours the fires do their work, the smoke passing out through the damper, an oval opening at the top of the kiln, or, should the floor, drawn thither by the "patent down draught." "Suppose now it were Thursday afternoon, and we had packed our oven, we should commence taking out 'trials' on Friday, says the guide. "The 'trials' are drawn out thus: At different points around the kiln a brick is left loose, some at the base of the kiln and some near the top. Inside, opposite each loose brick, a sagger, with a piece broken from the side, is placed, and inside the sagger are the small specimens of pottery which are to serve as 'trials.' Suppose then thirty to thirty-six hours to have elapsed, the oven-man would remove a brick and through the opening insert a long steel rod slightly hooked at its extremity. Bringing this carefully into position he feels about for the trial' piece, hooks it up and draws it out through the aperture. Having thus dexterously secured it, he holds it up to the light, and is then able to judge of the progress of his firing by the translucency of his 'trial.' Replacing it in the sagger, he proceeds to the next loose brick and repeats the action. In all probability he finds things progressing satisfactorily, and knows that the ware in the kiln will be ready for unpacking on Saturday. Meantime he allows the fire to slacken, until the allotted time when the tempera ture of the kiln is found to be almost normal." It is at this point that we may appropriately quote again from that sympathetic writer, Charles Dickens. He asks: "Standing in one of those kilns, nearly full, and seeing a free crow shoot across the aperture atop, and learning how the fire would wax hotter and hotter, by slow degrees. and would cool similarly, through a space of from forty to sixty hours, did no remembrance of the days when human clay was burnt oppress you? Yes, I think so. I suspect that fancy of a fiery haze, and a shortening breath, and a growing heat, and a some 1 Dickens was visiting the Staffordshire Potteries when he wrote this. gasping prayer; and a figure in black, interposing between you and the sky (as figures in black are very apt to do), and looking down, before it grew too hot to look and live, upon the Heretic in his edifying agony-I say, I suspect" (says the plate) "that some such fancy was pretty strong upon you when you went out into the air and blessed God for the bright spring day and the degenerate times." The china-ware when taken out of the kilns, after the first firing, is of a beautiful transparent white, suggestive of a ghostly nature rather than a nature of earthy clay. The "biscuit" warehouse is always well stocked, it being easy for intending patrons to select from the pure white forms the shapes they require, and from the decorated pieces the designs they most appreciate; one or two pieces in each style of decoration is always at hand. It would be obviously unwise to advance farther than the "biscuit" state with a large proportion of the stock, prior to sale, inasmuch as fashion in art, as elsewhere, quickly changes, and hand-decorated work of a high order is necessarily expensive. We should have observed that before the "biscuit" is carried to the "biscuit" store-room it is scoured. The object of the scouring is to get rid of the superfluous flint from the "bed." This scouring is done by women, standing before fans, use small strong brushes. The Factory Act requires the workers to wear respirators while at the work, in order to protect the lungs from dust. who, are In pieces where the decorative work is done "under glaze," that is to say, when the painting and printing accomplished before the glazing or enamelling, the "biscuit," in its Parian fairness, is handed over to the artists of the brush, who work out upon the clear "body" their innate conceptions of beauty. Technical knowledge is requisite on the part of the artist, as well as artis. tic skill and design. A painter on por celain must know the precise nature and extent of the change that the fir ing will effect upon his pigments. The artist must clearly be a bit of a chemist. He should know which colors to apply first, namely those which require the "greatest degree of heat, in order that they may be well fused before he applies the delicate and tender tints in finishing his painting, as those would be, if not destroyed, seriously injured if submitted to the same high temperature required for those colors which he uses in the early stage of his work." Brande says upon this subject. "When several colors are used they often require various temperatures; in which case, those which bear the highest temperature are first applied, and subsequently those which are brought out at a lower temperature." It would seem that all the colors are metallic oxides; the rose-colors and purples are made from gold; greens from cromium and copper; yellows from lead, antimony, and tin; red from iron; blue from cobalt. Combinations of different oxides produce a variety of colors. The famous Derby blue-a regal purple-is obtained from pure oxide of cobalt. Cobalt ores are found in Bohemia, Saxony, and France, but more abundantly in Germany, Sweden, and Norway. And here we cannot forbear quoting the following from the "History of Inventions," which is at once instructive, suggestive, and amusing: "The word cobalt seems to be derived from cobalus, which was the name of a spirit that, according to the superstitious notions of the times, haunted mines, destroyed the labors of the miners, and often gave them a great deal of un necessary trouble. The miners probably gave the name to the mineral out of joke, because it thwarted them as much as the supposed spirit, by exciting false hopes and rendering their labors often fruitless; for as it was not known at first to what use the mineral could be applied, it was thrown aside as useless. It was once customary in Germany to introduce into the Church service a prayer that God would preserve miners and their works from kobalts and spirits." Miners now eagerly search for the ore and gladly welcome its appearance. Opening the closed door of one of the studios our guide invites us to enter. We do so, and find ourselves in a veritable school of art. The tables are bright with young faces, all intent upon the work beloved and revered by them beyond any other. Some are painting and others are burnishing. In another studio every facility is allowed to first attempts, by way of encouragement of original work. It is instructive to watch the young designers portraying the forms and ines of beauty that represent the æsthetic world of the ideal. The ease with which the circles and many-sided figures are described with the skilfully managed brush, stencil and compasses, is not the least pleasing part of the work executed in this interesting department. "You "Time goes," says our guide. had better come now into the 'glazingroom.'" We hasten to obey, but the obedience costs us an effort; the studios being highly attractive. As we pass the gilding-room on our way to the glazing-room we look in for a moment. "Laying on the gold" calls for the most minute care. To each gilder a tiny "tot" of gold, equal in value to five shillings, and appearing as a mere dab on the palette, is allowed at one time. It is expected that a certain amount of work will be accomplished with this allowance; nor do the artists disappoint expectations. Gold, before firing, appears black, and after baking of a dull yellow. It is the work of the burnisher to "bring up the gold," by rubbing the gilded surface with a bloodstone and agate. But are in the "glazing" shop. We have already given the constituents of the china-glaze, and as we peer into the wooden tub or vat containing the mixture we observe that it resembles, so far as its appearance goes, ordinary whitewash. Before the tub stauds a man in white apparel, and to his right a pile of ghostly plates, waiting for immersion. Fixing on the thumb of now We his right hand a hook of some three or four inches, he lifts a "piece" with hook and fingers from the bench to the tub, and dexterously twirls it in the glaze, draws it out, wipes his fingers round the edge to remove any slight marks there may be, and places the plate upon a special support, where it remains until it is taken away to be scoured for the second time before the second firing. Of course it is no longer "biscuit" ware. The dexterous movement of the glazer appears as simplicity itself, but appearances unreliable. "I was years," says the glazer, "before I could dip a plate properly. I thought the action looked easy enough as I watched others do it, but I found it more difficult than I can tell you." are most After glazing and scouring, the plates (other undecorated pieces are dealt with in the same way) are fired for ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen hours, as the case may be, in saggers rendered air-tight by clay pressed between each two, and the firing completed, the glazed articles are carried to the "glost" warehouse, and here they are rubbed smooth with sandstone or rubbing-stone, and then distributed to the various studios for decoration. This last applies only to articles decorated "over the glaze." China printing is also in Vogue at the Derby China Works, but there is less demand for printed articles than for hand-painted goods. To effect a high-class print the selected design is skilfully engraved on copper sheets, and these are filled with color. A sheet of thin tissue paper is damped with size and spread upon each plate, and this again is pressed between flannel rollers. The pressure transfers the pattern from the copper plate to the damped paper which, in its turn, is caused to transfer its design to the vessel it is required to decorate. A fair share of patience and knack are requisite to the successful laying of the damped paper upon the plate or other article. When it has been curately placed, frequent measurements having been taken with com ac |