OVENS. 



must vary with those of the articles which they are intended to 

 contain. 



The disposition and arrangement of the piles of saggers in the 

 oven are represented in fig. 39, some of the piles being represented 

 in section, to show the arrangement of the articles within the 

 saggers. 



The process of baking highly decorated ornamental articles in 

 porcelain is a process requiring much greater precaution, and a 



Fig. 39. 



, _ ^-r-s r~~~"~ - 



different sort of apparatus. It is usually effected by means of 

 special furnaces and saggers, of which an example is presented in 

 fig. 40. The furnace is constructed in fire-clay or cast-iron, and 

 the fire is regulated in it with the greatest care. Trial pieces 

 are from time to time taken from the opening, v, by which the 

 effect of the firing on the several colours is ascertained. 



7. The hovels in which the ovens are built form a very peculiar 

 and striking feature of the pottery towns, and forcibly arrest the 

 attention and excite the surprise of the stranger, resembling as 

 they closely do a succession of gigantic bee-hives. They are con- 

 structed of bricks, about 40 feet diameter, and 35 feet nigh, with 

 an aperture at the top for the escape of the smoke. The " ovens" 

 are of a similar form, about 22 feet diameter, and from 18 to 21 

 feet high, heated by fire-places, or "mouths," about nine in 

 number, built externally around them. Flues in connection with 

 these converge under the bottom of the oven to a central opening, 



1S7 



