422 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



excellent thrower), they were unsuccessful for a long time, and had 

 actually determined to abandon any further attempt to make the 

 White Stone Ware, when an accidental circumstance encouraged 

 them to proceed. The water with which they prepared their clay, 

 it seems, became highly saturated with salt, owing to the shord- 

 ruck or rubbish from their ovens being placed immediately above 

 their water-pool, and which rubbish contained much salt. The 

 rain, passing through the shord-ruck, dissolved the salt, and car- 

 ried it into the pool, whence it got into the body of the ware, and, 

 in conjunction with the flint and clay, together with the lime which 

 generally adheres to flint stones, formed a fusible body that arrived 

 at a state of vitrification with a lower degree of heat than was re- 

 quisite to prepare this body for the salt glaze. This discovery in- 

 duced them to make another trial with purer water ; and in this 

 they succeeded beyond expectation. 



The Wedgwoods followed up their success with unremitting dili- 

 gence ; and shortly afterwards built a new and commodious manu- 

 factory, where they had a supply of good water. This was near 

 the Windmill, invented and executed by the celebrated Brindley, 

 for reducing flint stones to a fine powder by grinding them in water, 

 and thereby preventing the pernicious effects upon the health of the 

 men employed in preparing the flint according to the old method, 

 by pounding it by hand in a dry state in a mortar. The fine dust 

 of the flint getting into the lungs, produced coughs and consump- 

 tions, which frequently proved fatal. This building, censured at 

 the time as having been built upon too extensive a scale, was the 

 first Earthenware Manufactory in the Potteries not covered with 

 thatch. In 1750 they erected an excellent and substantial dwell- 

 ing-house adjoining their manufactory, which so far exceeded the 

 other houses in the Potteries in point of size and elegance, that 

 it then was, and now is, distinguished by the appellation of the 

 " Big House;" and about the year 1763, these gentlemen retired 

 from business in the possession of an ample fortune, the just and 

 honourable reward of their industry and integrity. 



About this time an improvement was made in the salt glaze by 

 the united efforts of William Littlor and Aaron Wedgwood. Litt- 

 lor had observed how nearly the White Stone Ware approached to 

 Porcelain; and about the year 1750, he left Burslem, and com- 

 menced a Porcelain manufactory at Longton, near Stoke. He so 

 far succeeded as to excite the astonishment of the potters ; but it 

 proved an unprofitable article, and the manufacture of it was dis- 



