440 Voyage of the Novara. 



them. As the plant is only found in the wild state, and 

 obstinately resists all attempts to cultivate it, its collection 

 among the forests of North America is attended with great 

 hardship and expense, and whereas in former years the 

 profit realized on this article of commerce by English 

 and American merchantmen amounted to from 500 to 

 600 per cent., it is now reduced to a very moderate 

 proportion. 



A more general subject of interest is presented by the 

 shops where is sold the porcelain- ware, the manufacture of 

 which dates from a very remote period of Chinese history, 

 and was already a flom-ishing trade at the commencement of 

 our historic epoch. Indeed we may reasonably assume, not- 

 withstanding the beautiful specimens of the art which from time 

 to time are brought to light, that this special branch of in- 

 dustry is at present in a state of decline, while of many kinds 

 of porcelain manufacture no examples can now be shown, as 

 the secret of their manipulation has perished. What usually 

 interests Europeans in these shops is what is known as 

 '' crackle" porcelain,* the upper surface of which every where 

 presents broken lines, so that the entire vessel appears as 

 though it consisted of numbers of small pieces cemented to 

 each other, the whole having very much the appearance of 

 Mosaic. But this description also is no longer manufactured 

 of the first quality in the present day. Antique porcelain is 

 of extraordinary value, but specimens of modern manufacture, 



* In German Bruch-porzelkm, in French porcelaine-craquelee. 



