240 CERAMIC WARE. 



is not always had recourse to. Thus, for example, the Lam- 

 beth stone-ware acquires its glaze in a very peculiar fashion. 

 Whilst glowing hot in the furnace or kiln, a little salt is 

 thrown in, and a glazed surface results. The effect is very 

 curious. It depends on a certain reaction between one of 

 the elements of common salt and silex ; a reaction that, 

 involving as it does a rather abstruse chemical function, need 

 not detain us. 



The beautiful Parian ware, of which little statuettes are 

 made, deserves a word of notice. Generally speaking, the 

 material of Parian ware may be described as clay, the fusi- 

 bility of which has been increased by mixture with borax, 

 or other equivalent substance. 



Borax was universally employed, but some of the Parian 

 statuettes now made do not contain borax. Parian statu- 

 ettes are very pretty as to material, but they are apt to be 

 deformed. Not only do they shrink amazingly in the process 

 of burning, but they sometimes drop. The result of this 

 dropping is, that small Parian Yenuses sometimes come out 

 of the furnaces with crooked spines, like young ladies need- 

 ing gymnastics and a backboard. 



Thus has the history of Ceramic Ware been sketched from 

 antiquity onwards. The honour and dignity of alumina, silica, 

 and oxygen have, it is assumed, been vindicated. When 

 Monsieur St. Clair Deville succeeded, a few years ago, in 

 extracting aluminium, in commercial quantity, from alumina, 

 its rust, he awakened popular wonder. The surprise has 

 passed away. We turn aluminium into toys, buttons, and 

 trinkets, ceasing any longer to look on it with reverence. Clay 

 we despise. Fragments of pottery we kick out of our path, as 

 awakening no thought of poetry. But if there be ladies in the 

 moon, and if no clay be there, and if the lunar ladies, peering 

 earthward through a sufficiently powerful telescope, can steal a 

 glimpse of our beautiful crockery, they must deem us the hap- 

 piest creatures alive to be gladdened with so much beauty. 



