3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rical wall tiles which, were made previous to 1870. They are plain 

 tiles of yellow clay, of great hardness, the glaze being also hard 

 and entirely free from " crazing," and fully equal to anything of 

 the kind which has since been produced. The hexagonal speci- 

 men figured is decorated with painted designs above the glaze, 

 consisting of a green vine on a buff ground, with a red center 

 outlined in black. The lozenge-shaped example is painted with a 

 black device on a lemon ground. Later, several patterns of em- 

 bossed unglazed mantel tiles, in conventional decoration, were 

 produced, but the manufacture of ornamental tiles was only car- 

 ried on a short time. At present they make plain geometrical 

 floor tiles of different colored bodies and of exceeding hardness. 

 The clay used is fine and homogeneous, and when burned almost 

 approaches stone-ware. The firm also manufactures fire-brick, 

 dental muffles, and stove-linings. 



Furnace tests of the standing-up power of the best-known fire- 

 bricks, instituted by the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylva- 

 nia in 1876, at Harrisburg, showed that the productions of Messrs. 

 Hyzer & Lewellen were superior, in heat-resisting qualities, to all 

 others that were submitted for examination. 



Scarcely two years after the Centennial, Mr. John G. Low, of 

 Chelsea, Mass., who had finished a course of several years in the 

 art schools of Paris, and had recently become interested in the 

 manufacture of pottery, formed a copartnership with his father, 

 Hon. John Low, and immediately commenced the erection of a 

 tile-factory in his native place. Less than a year and a half after 

 the works were started we find the firm competing with English 

 tile-makers at the exhibition at Crewe, near Stoke-on-Trent, which 

 was conducted under the auspices of the Royal Manchester, Liv- 

 erpool, and North Lancashire Agricultural Society, one of the 

 oldest societies in England. There they won the gold medal, over 

 all the manufacturers of the United Kingdom, for the best collec- 

 tion of art tiles exhibited. This record, probably unsurpassed in 

 ceramic history, serves to illustrate the remarkably rapid develop- 

 ment of an industry new in America, but old in the East, and 

 shows the resources at command of the American potter. 



In 1883 Hon. John Low retired from the firm, and Mr. John F. 

 Low, son of the founder, became associated with his father, under 

 the style of J. G. & J. F. Low. 



Mr. Arthur (3sborne, who has designed the majority of the 

 tiles produced here, is a talented artist of the older schools of art, 

 whose conceptions are chaste and classic and possess marked origi- 

 nality. 



A novel method was resorted to by Mr. Low in the embellish- 

 ment of his earlier productions, which he has patented, and which 

 be calls the " natural " process. To secure accurate impressions 



