20(i MANUFACTUUKS OF RUSSIA. 



The markets of the latter region were always ready to buy examples of good quality. 

 The Finnish wares exerted a great influence upon the development of faience, 

 serving as models aud stimulating the home competition, especially in the large 

 manufactories, in which at that period the household industry had centred, and which 

 until then were of the greatest importance to the local markets. 



Because of the stringencies of the times, the large manufactories were forced 

 to lower the prices of their wares, and therefore the medium and lower kinds of 

 goods became, of course, predominant; nevertheless, all measures tending to further 

 the improvement of the highest grades of faience have been employed since the end 

 of the eighties until now, and good results in this specialty have been attained: 

 the best sorts of the Russian faience, however, made now mainly at the factory in 

 the government of Tver, are not to be compared in quality with those formerly pro- 

 duced. The successes attained in the manufacture of faience are the latest in point of 

 time which the Eussian cerauiics have attained in its different branches. 



In the government of Novgorod fire clays are very abundant; among them 

 there are kinds which would astonish an amateur by their extraordinary qualities 

 and peculiarities: for example, the so-called velghei/sk clay found near the rivulet 

 Velgheya, a tributary of the river Msta; the kovanJchisJc soukhar aud other so-called 

 sonkhars of the district of Borovichi, which form no paste with water; and also 

 other varieties. 



The kovankinsTi-soukhar, found on the lands of Mr. Kovanko, contains 41.10 parts 

 aluminium, 38.01 bound and 4.45 free silica, 0.24 lime, 0.09 magnesium, 1.81 pero- 

 xide of iron; its loss in firing is 13.97 per cent. These clays, studied and analyzed 

 by Eussian as well as foreign specialists, for example, C. Bishof, brought about long 

 ago, on the one hand, as a predominant branch of the ceramical industry, the manu- 

 facture of fire bricks and hearthstones, together with a large trade in fire-clay pro- 

 ducts, and on the other hand, the production of the fireproof plates for household 

 use, able to resist the most various changes of temperature on cast iron hearths; it 

 is a kind of stone plate of very strong coloured faience, or wedgewood. Moreover, 

 other special branches of ceramics, not dependent on the profusion of the fire clays, 

 have developed in this locality; for example, the making of terra-cotta wares and 

 ornaments at the factory of Zaitsevsky in Borovichi, where stonewares are also 

 produced, as also at the factory of Fok in the district of Tikhvin where this pro- 

 duct is a specialty. However, in this locality the first place must be allotted to the 

 production of fireproof building materials, and to the now greatly developed manu- 

 facture of water mains, a branch of industry in which the import, chiefly from Swe- 

 den, and to some extent, from England and Germany, has until now been very con- 

 siderable. 



The making of fire bricks dates from time immemorial in different localities 

 abounding in deposits of fire clays, in the form of a household industry; in a like 

 manner it has existed in the government of Novgorod, especially in the environs of 

 Borovichi. As an evidence of the preference given in Eussia to the English fire 

 bricks, considerably less now than formerly, may be cited the fact that the peasants 

 of the district of Borovichi long ago stamped on the bricks made by them a special 

 mark consisting of a lion and unicorn, as an indispensible attribute of the genuine 

 fireproof bricks. Until now the words «English» and «fireproof» are synonyms when 



