262 An Account of the Biddery Ware in India. [Oct. 



herein not a little disappointed, as I had always understood that 

 it was made of a metallic substance found on the table-land of 

 Biddery, and which, as I never had made any experiment with 

 a view of discovering its composition, I flattered myself might 

 be a new mineral. In coming along I really had found also a 

 lithamaga, which resembled the common Biddery ware in 

 colour and appearance; and it was probably this that had given 

 rise to the account which former travellers had given of that 

 substance, as the mineral used for the ware manufactured at that 

 place. 



The business of their second visit was to cast, or to make, 

 before me a vessel of their ware. The apparatus which they 

 brought with them on the occasion consisted of a broken 

 cutchery-pot, to serve as a furnace; a piece of bamboo about a 

 foot long as a bellows, or blow-pipe; a form made of. clay, 

 exactly resembling a common hooker-bottom ; and some wax, 

 which probably had been used by several generations for the 

 purpose for which it is yet employed. 



The first operation was to cover the form with wax on all 

 sides, which was done by winding a band, into which the wax 

 was reduced as close as possible round it. A thin coat of clay 

 was then laid over the wax, and, to fasten the outer to the inner 

 clay form, some iron pins were driven through it in various 

 directions. After this had been dried for some time in the sun, 

 the wax was liquefied by putting the form in a place sufficiently 

 heated, and discharged through the hole, by which the melted 

 metal is poured in to occupy its place. It is scarcely necessary 

 to say that when the metal is sufficiently cooled the form is 

 broken, and the vessel found of the desired shape. 



Colouring the ware with the standing black, for which they 

 are celebrated, is the next, and in my opinion the most remark- 

 able operation. It consists in taking equal parts of muriate of 

 ammonia and saltpetre earth, such as is found at the bottom 

 of old mud walls in old and populous villages in India, mixing 

 them together with water, and rubbing the paste which is thus 

 produced on the vessel, which has been previously scraped with 

 a knife. The change of colour is almost instantaneous, and, 

 what is surprising to me, lasting. 



The saltpetre earth of this place has, when dry, a reddish 

 colour, like the soil about Biddery. , It is very likely that the 

 carbonate, or oxide of iron, which it contains, is essentially 

 necessary for the production of the black colour. The muriate 

 and nitrate of lime, which is in considerable proportion in all 

 earth from which saltpetre is manufactured in India, may be 

 perhaps not an useless ingredient in this respect. 



The hooker-bottoms of this ware happen sometimes to get 

 tarnished, acquiring a brownish, or shillering colour, which is 



