414 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



to the wageing board, where it is slit into flat thin pieces with a 

 Wire, and the least stones or gravel pick't out of it. This being 

 done, they wage it, i. e. knead or mould it like bread, and make it 

 into round balls proportionable to their work, and then 'tis brought 

 to the wheel, and formed as the Workman sees good. 



" When the Potter has wrought the clay either into hollow or 

 flat ware, they are set abroad to dry in fair weather, but by the 

 fire in foule, turning them as they see occasion, which they call 

 whaving : when they are dry they stouk them, i. e. put Ears and 

 Handles to such Vessels as require them : These also being dry, 

 they then Slip or paint them with their severall sorts of Slip, ac- 

 cording as they desigrie their work, when the first Slip is dry, 

 laying on the others at their leasure, the Orange Slip makeing the 

 ground, and the white and red, the paint ; which two colours they 

 break with a wire brush, much after the manner they doe when 

 they marble paper, and then cloud them with a pensil when they 

 are pretty dry. After the vessels are painted, they lead them, with 

 that sort of Lead Ore they call Smithum which is the smallest Ore 

 of all, beaten into dust, finely sifted and strewed upon them ; 

 which gives them the gloss, but not the colour ; all the colours 

 being cheifly given by the variety of Slips, except the Motley- 

 colour, which is procured by blending the Lead with Manganese, by 

 the Workmen calPd Magnus. But when they have a mind to shew 

 the utmost of their skill in giving their wares a fairer gloss than or- 

 dinary, they lead them then with lead calcined into powder, which 

 they also sift fine and strew upon them as before, which not only 

 gives them a higher gloss, but goes much further too in their work, 

 than Lead Ore would have done. 



" After this is done, they are carried to the Oven, which is 

 ordinarily above 8 foot high, and about 6 foot wide, of a round 

 copped forme, where they are placed one upon another from the 

 bottom to the top : if they be ordinary wares such as cylindricall 

 Butter-pots, &c. that are not leaded, they are exposed to the naked 

 fire, and so is all their flat ware though it be leaded, haveing only 

 parting-shards, i. e. thin bits of old pots put between them, to keep 

 them from sticking together : But if they be leaded hollow-wares, 

 they doe not expose them to the naked fire, but put them in skrag- 

 ers, that is, in coarse metall'd pots, made of marie (not clay} of 

 divers formes according as their wares require, in which they put 

 commonly 3 pieces of clay called Bobbs for the ware to stand on, 

 to keep it from sticking to the Shragers: as they put them in the 



