STAFFOEDSHIEE. 



239 



quently two great centres of industry — tlie one in the north, in the coal basin of 

 North Staffordshire, the other in the south, around Dudley and Wolverhampton. 



The former of these districts is drained by the nascent Trent, and is known as 

 that of the Potteries, for the manufacture of earthenware has been carried on there 

 from immemorial times, and it furnishes most of the china which England exports 

 to foreign countries, much to the increase of its national wealth. Stohe-upon- Trent, 



Fig. 117.— The District of the Pottekies. 

 Scale 1 ; 80,000. 



Wof G 



1 Jlile. 



the metropolis of this district, a dingy and straggling town, has raised monuments 

 to Wedgwood and Minton, the two men who by their genius have most contributed 

 towards its prosperity. It was at Etniria, a couple of miles to the north of Stoke, that 

 Josiah Wedgwood established his factory in 1771, in the hope of being able to equal 

 one day the productions of the master potters of Tuscany. It was he who taught 

 England the art of producing a beautiful cream-coloured porcelain, such as had 

 been manufactured for a short time in the sixteenth century at the French village 



