Pottery

earthenware. In its widest sense the term includes all objects made of plastic clay hardened by fire. In ordinary usage, however, the coarser sorts, as brick, sewer pipe, roof tiling, pavements, etc., are excluded. Well baked pottery is the most durable of all substances. It will neither rust, dissolve, nor disintegrate. So far as the effect of time is concerned, an earthenware plate will outlast an iron kettle. Pottery is classed usually as soft pottery, stoneware, and porcelain. Common flowerpots, Greek vases, cheap earthenware, and majolica are examples of soft pottery. They can be melted in an intense fire. Stoneware is harder and has been burned more thoroughly. Porcelain differs from stoneware again in being whiter and semitransparent. It is the most difficult of pottery to fuse.

In forming a piece of pottery of whatever class the clay is first freed from all impurities and grit. It is then mixed into a thick paste with which to form the body. The proportion in which the ingredients are mixed and the requisite degree of stiffness are secrets of the potter's art, guarded by all large establishments with care. In making an article, the potter takes a piece of clay and fashions it between his hands on a potter's wheel. The latter is a small, circular table resting on a pivot, so as to revolve readily. The most primitive potter's wheel is turned by hand. The Egyptians used an improved form of wheel. A lower table, larger and heavier than the first, was attached to the same axle, so that the workman might cause it to spin around with his foot, thus leaving both hands to shape the clay. As the lump of clay whirls with the table the workman molds it with his hands, as in a lathe. If of just the right consistency the paste shapes itself with wonderful ease and regularity. As the potter raises or lowers his hands, spreads them, or brings them closer together, the clay follows, rising or falling, spreading or curving, and shaping itself into a plate, cup, or vase, almost as though it seems to realize what is wanted of it.

The potter's wheel appealed to the ancients as a marvelous invention. The Egyptians claimed that it was given to man by the immortal gods, and that the first man was fashioned on it. Homer compares the spinning of the potter's wheel to the rhythm of the dance. Jeremiah compares the fashioning of clay on the wheel with the making and unmaking of nations under the Divine hand:

Then I went down to the potter's house, and. behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

. . . O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

In modern factories the wheels are driven, of course, by power. An ingenious device permits each workman to regulate the speed of his own wheel. When the body of the article has attained the proper shape it is heated or fired in a kiln in order that it may be handled without loss of shape. Fat clays are those that shrink during firing; a lean clay, that is to say, one containing a larger proportion of sand or flint, shrinks but little. Here again the proper proportion of fat and lean material requires experience and judgment. Sometimes old pottery is ground fine and added to the paste to serve as lean material.

The surface of pottery is coated usually with a glaze or enamel. Glaze is simply another word for glass. The article is dipped in a tank of liquid glaze and then fired again to harden it. It is necessary that the glaze and the body should be somewhat alike in material, or else the glaze will flake off in use. Lead is frequently added to a glaze to make it adhere to the clay body. Most gray wares are finished with a lead glaze. A glaze is transparent. The body may be seen through it. Enamel is a glaze having the addition of some material that makes it opaque. Enamel conceals the clay. Glaze permits it to be seen. Both enamel and glaze permit of high colors. The brown stone bottles, known sometimes as ginger beer bottles, are often finished with a salt glaze. Feldspar glaze is used to cover porcelain.

No pottery is found among the remains of the cave dwellers. Otherwise, bits of pottery are among the earliest relics of prehistoric man. The burial mounds of Europe contain specimens of a coarse brown pottery moulded apparently without the assistance of the potter's wheel. Some of them appear to have been built up from strips of clay; others to have been scooped out of a solid ball. They consist chiefly of urns full of burned bones, food vessels, drinking cups, and incense cups. They are unglazed. The ancients learned later, however, to make both glazes and enamels of wondrous beauty and brilliance. Copper and cobalt were used for blue and green; manganese for purple and violet; iron, lead, and copper for yellow and red; iron and manganese for black; tin for white, etc. They had a variety of tints, as turquoise, ultramarine, and deep indigo at their command. The finest decorated enamels are found on panels or slabs used for the walls of palaces. They are ornamented usually with artistic designs. Egyptian plaques, votive figures, cups, bowls, goblets, vases, wine jars, and bottles, in a great variety of shapes and colors, are shown in the British Museum and at the Louvre. From the ruined palaces of Babylon and Nineveh a variety of tablets, tiling, vases, urns, jars, and cups have been recovered either entire or in fragmentary condition. Much has been learned of customs and even the history of the Euphrates Valley from the decorations of pottery. The Phoenicians, prehistoric Greeks, and the Etrurians were noted for their pottery. Etruscan vases are still unsurpassed for symmetry of shape. The Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and Moors, the Teutons, the Saxons, and the Gauls developed styles of pottery known to the expert at a glance. The Chinese and Japanese are celebrated especially for their porcelains. The development of pottery among the modern nations of Europe is an exceedingly interesting topic. Volumes have been written on the productions of each country.

Like other primitive people, the prehistoric Indians of the New World had their earthenware. Even the piles of earth made by the mound builders contain specimens of rude pottery. The corn-raising tribes of Indians burned large urns in which to store their grain. In the absence of other fuel the Indians of the West were accustomed to burn their pottery with piles of dry buffalo dung. The Pueblo and other Indians are famous yet for native pottery. It is built up in strips. Many specimens indicate that the clay was built on a basket that was burned out in firing.

The earliest pottery in the colonies of which we have record was established at Burlington, New Jersey, in 1685. Others were established in South Carolina in 1765; in Philadelphia in 1769, etc. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century Americans were dependent largely upon England for crockery. Very ordinary plates were worth twenty-five cents apiece. The census of 1900 reported. 1,000 establishments, employing 43,714 wage earners, with an annual output worth $44,263,386. Trenton, New Jersey, and East Liverpool, Ohio, are the chief centers of the American pottery manufacture. Trenton alone has forty establishments engaged in the manufacture of earthenware, including china, semi-porcelain, white granite, bath tubs, tiles, terra cotta, etc., with a total value of $12,000,000 a year. About half of this sum is to be credited, however, to the coarser forms of earthenware not usually regarded as pottery.

See Amphora; Delft; Kaolin; Lamp; Majolica; Meissen; Nineveh; Porcelain; Satsuma; Sevres; Wedgewood; Brick; Adobe; Talc