HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 419 



casting or pouring-in of slip; and these castings were repeated un- 

 til the required strength or thickness was obtained. The moulds 

 were then placed before a fire to dry, which done, the pieces of ware 

 were easily separated from the moulds, and the seams or marks 

 where the moulds parted, were smoothed or taken off, and the spouts 

 and handles were put on by the person whose branch of the art was 

 then termed " Handling and Trimming." The pieces of earthen- 

 ware being thus formed, were carried to the oven, in which they 

 were, for many hours, exposed to a considerable degree of heat ; and 

 for this purpose they were put or placed in saggars, having large 

 holes cut in their sides to admit the fumes of the salt, which thus 

 united more freely with the flint and clay upon the surface of the 

 ware. These saggars, when filled with earthenware, were placed 

 or piled upon each other about ten or twelve feet high, in circular 

 ovens twelve or fourteen feet wide, having seven or eight mouths 

 or fire-places at equal distances. This oven was generally filled 

 once a-week. The firing generally commenced on the Thursday 

 evening, and finished on the Saturday following about mid-day. 



There were at this time upwards of twenty ovens in the parish 

 of Burslem, all of which cast in their salt or glazing* at the same 

 time, generally on the Saturday morning from nine to twelve 

 o'clock. This occasioned such immense and constant volumes of 

 smoke, as literally to envelope the whole neighbourhood ; and it 

 was not unfrequent for passengers to mistake their way, and run 

 against each other, during the continuance of this process. The 

 scene which presented itself upon these occasions, has been not in- 

 aptly compared to the emissions of Etna or Vesuvius. 



This white glaze soon attracted the attention of enamellers from 

 the china and Dutch-tile manufactories then established in differ- 

 ent parts of the kingdom, who began to cover their carved work 

 with fine enamel colours, and soon after made great progress in 

 painting groups of figures, flowers, birds, &c. and in copying the 



The glazing with salt seems to be effected by the following process. The 

 salt poured by degrees into an oven raised to a very high temperature, is imme- 

 diately decomposed ; the alkaline part of it, in a state of vapour, enters into the 

 saggars, and surrounds the piece* of earthenware, dissolving the surface of 

 them, by which means they are covered witii a very thin coating of glass, pro- 

 duced by the dissolution of the earths of which the body of the ware is com- 

 posed, in this alkaline vapour. The muriatic acid of the salt, combined with 

 the caloric in the oven, to which it has a strong affinity, rushes with violence 

 through the chimney of the oven, and through every other aperture of it, and 

 forming the white suffocating smoke above alluded to. Common salt, it is well 

 known, is the crystallized solution of soda in the muriatic acid. 



