THE POTTERS ART. 



Fig. 24. 



there in immediate juxta-position with, the coal necessary for its 

 conversion into the fabricated article. 



The chief town of the district, Burslem, is supposed to derive 

 its name from two Saxon words, BuRtf or BYUTT, a stream or a 

 farm, and LCEM, clay. If this be the origin of the name, it would 

 follow that the fabrication of earthenware in that district must 

 have prevailed since a very remote epoch. 



19. About 1680, Messrs. Palmer and Bagnall, potters at Burslem, 

 discovered accidentally the property of marine salt, by which it 

 supplied a glaze. In some culinary process, salt being thrown 

 into the fire its vapour came in contact with the biscuit of an 

 unglazed article, and was observed to have the effect of giving it a 

 glaze. The expedient was tried in the manufacture, and suc- 

 ceeded. The salt, when vaporised, coming in contact with the 

 unglazed ware, was decomposed by the silica which formed so 

 large an ingredient of the paste, and the soda deposited combining 

 with the silica produced the glaze. 



It was about this time that the brothers Elers of Nuremberg 

 immigrated to England, and erected a small factory in Stafford- 

 shire. There were then no more than twenty-two ovens at 

 Burslem. 



20. The Messrs. Elers had not long been there beibre they dis- 

 covered in the neighbourhood a bed of clay of very superior 

 quality, and, erecting upon the spot itself a factory, resorted to 



140 



