CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



those that are brought out at lower temperatures. 

 This art of painting on porcelain, or in enamel, is 

 of the most delicate description ; much experience 

 and skill arc required in it, and with every care, 

 there are frequent failures ; hence, it is attended 

 with considerable expense. The gilding of por- 

 celain is generally performed by applying finely 

 divided gold mixed with gum-water and borax ; 

 on the application of heat, the gum burns off, and 

 the borax, vitrifying on the surface, causes the 

 gold to adhere ; it is afterwards burnished with 

 bloodstone, agate, or other polishers. 



There are some considerable manufactories 

 of pottery in the north of England, and one or 

 two in Yorkshire ; but the principal site of both 

 porcelain and pottery wares is in the modern 

 borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, which contains a 

 population of 100,000 persons engaged directly 

 or indirectly in these .manufactures. The prin- 

 cipal seats of porcelain manufacture in conti- 

 nental Europe are Sevres near Paris, Tournay 

 in Flanders, Dresden, Berlin, and Florence ; the 

 wares of Sevres being as yet unequalled in their 

 translucency, glaze, and gilding, and in the 

 elegance and taste displayed in their shapes and 

 figure-paintings. 



ENCAUSTIC TILES TESSERAE MOSAICS. 



The term mosaic is said to be derived from the 

 Greek word mousaikon, elegant, or belonging to 

 the Muses ; and is now applied to the art of 

 imbedding or inlaying in a cement fragments of 

 different coloured substances, so as to produce 

 the effect of a picture. This art was practised at 

 a very early period, and was introduced into Italy 

 by the Byzantine Greeks. Magnificent specimens 

 are to be seen in many of the Italian churches, 

 where precious marbles, agates, jaspers, avan- 

 turines, malachites, c. constitute the coloured 

 tesserae, or small square fragments of which the 

 work is formed. 



The ancients applied mosaics chiefly to pave- 

 ments, for which they are admirably adapted. 

 Specimens of highly decorated pavements are 

 also frequently met with in the grand ecclesiastical 

 structures of the middle ages. Within the last 

 thirty years, great and successful efforts have been 

 made in this country to introduce encaustic and 

 mosaic pavement? : the latter, from the costliness 

 of the labour required in setting small tessera?, 

 has not advanced much ; but a very large trade 

 has grown up in the former, and the designs of 

 Messrs Minton and Hollins, of Messrs Maw, Mr 

 Godwin, and others, are daily increasing in beauty 

 and perfection ; besides flooring, they are also 

 being much used for wall-decoration and other 

 purposes. The employment of small earthenware 

 tesserae for mosaic pictures has been carried out 

 with great success- by Messrs Minton and Hollins, 

 at South Kensington and elsewhere. Both tiles 

 and tesserae are exceedingly hard and durable, and 

 almost every kind of colour can be given to them ; 

 they are both made in the same way, their real 

 difference being only in size. 



Encaustic Tiles are made in this country in the 

 same manner as machine-made bricks ; that is to 

 say, the various kinds of clay used are carefully 

 prepared and ground to powder, which is slightly 

 moistened, and pressed, usually by hydraulic ma- 

 chinery, into the moulds. Various designs are 



360 



pressed into their upper surfaces by properly pre- 

 pared steel dies attached to the plungers ; and 

 these impressions are afterwards filled in with 

 differently coloured clays or enamels, reduced by 

 water to the consistence of cream. As the mois- 

 ture is absorbed, the surface is scraped clown to 

 a perfect level, and the tile is then burned. This 

 process, with various modifications, is carried out 

 chiefly in Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Here- 

 fordshire, for wall decoration ; and for some of the 

 finest qualities of floor-tiles, glazing is used the 

 same as in stoneware, &c. 



Florentine Mosaics are formed by a totally 

 different process. A slab of stone, usually black 

 marble, is finely polished, having been cut to the 

 shape and size required. Upon this the design 

 is drawn, and then cut out, so as to allow pieces 

 of variously coloured stones to be inlaid, and, 

 by their combinations, produce beautiful pictures. 

 Some of these works, as seen in the Pitti Palace 

 and other places, are of remarkable beauty. Those 

 sold in the shops of Florence at comparatively 

 low prices are often not quite genuine ; instead of 

 rare stones, coloured pieces of various sea-shells 

 are much used. 



Roman Mosaics. These .differ from both kinds 

 mentioned ; they are made of glass, and will be 

 described amongst the manufactures of glass, 

 which is the next portion of our subject. 



GLASS. 



The origin of glass-manufacture is involved in 

 the greatest obscurity, and has given rise to much 

 ingenious speculation, upon which little or no 

 dependence can be placed. Glass beads have 

 been found on the bodies of Egyptian mummies 

 which are known to have been embalmed 30x30 

 years ago. Pliny says that the art of glass- 

 making was accidentally discovered by some 

 shipwrecked Phoenician mariners, whose vessel 

 was laden with fossil alkali, a component part of 

 glass. On kindling a fire on the sand to prepare 

 some food, and placing their cooking-vessels on 

 pieces of the substance just named, the sand, by 

 the agency of the fire and its union with the alkali, 

 became vitrified ; hence, according to this author- 

 ity, the discovery of the art. This is the explana- 

 tion of Pliny, and has answered its purpose until 

 later times, when the closer examination of the 

 mural pictures on the buildings of Egypt has shewn 

 us particularly in those of Thebes that the 

 Egyptians were accomplished glass-blowers ; and 

 our museums now contain marvellous instances 

 of their handiwork. 



The first glass-manufactory of any note in the 

 Christian era was established at the village of 

 Murano, near Venice. The glass produced there 

 was superior to any in Europe, and for a long 

 time the principal supply was obtained from thence. 

 The Venetians were long celebrated for making 

 glass mirrors, which they brought to consider- 

 able perfection. Window--glass appears to have 

 been made in England in the middle of the I5th 

 century, but it was of an inferior description. In 

 1557, the finer sort of window-glass was manu- 

 factured at Crutched Friars in London. The first 

 flint-glass was made at Savoy House in the 

 Strand ; and the first plate-glass for mirrors, 

 coach-windows, and the like, was fabricated at 



