68 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



thousand hands, and have about thirty kilns in blast ; in fact in ten 

 square miles in the pottery district one hundred and eighty-five 

 thousand people are employed. 



Perhaps the climax of the potter's art may be said to have been 

 reached in Messrs. Doultons' " salt glaze coils " for chemical works, 

 and their ornamental earthen and stoneware. The latter is made from 

 a clay or frit which fuses at white heat, and when the kiln is at 

 this stage a large quantity of common salt is thrown in at the top, 

 which immediately vaporizes and chemically reacts on the surface 

 of the ware, which, on being cooled, presents a perfect glaze ; the 

 finest scratches are not filled up, and yet the ware will withstand the 

 action of most acids. Messrs. Doulton, from the first, saw the value 

 of not only making good ware, but that it was necessary to have 

 good artistic decoration on pottery to ensure its demand by the 

 public. They founded the Lambeth Art School expressly to train 

 designers for their works, and engaged the services of Mr. J. Sparkes, 

 the worthy Head Master of South Kensington Art School, to super- 

 intend and direct the labors of their staff of already well-trained 

 artists. 



The subject of pottery is such a vast one that it is impossible, 

 Mr. Ireland said, to treat of it in a popular way, or to do justice to it 

 in a couple of hours, and mentioned for those who wished to pursue 

 the study, that " Chaffer's Marks on Pottery and Porcelain " was 

 a reliable work for collectors, while " Marryatt's History of Pottery," 

 " Hamilton's Greek and Etruscan vases," " Dennis' cities and 

 cemeteries of Greece and Etruria," should also be read. To enter 

 into the different means of producing colors would more than fill 

 a paper by itself. 



Ludwig Ritter, a modern, celebrated writer says : " It is no 

 very easy thing to make intelligible to those who have no love for 

 pottery, who take no delight in the curious and beautiful pieces of 

 china and earthenware, how it is that very many of their fellow 

 mortals, not altogether despicable persons, are possessed of an en- 

 thusiastic liking for these things. The truth is that the prevailing- 

 love for old china is both deep and wide to the antiquary and to the 

 student of past history. There is this attraction in the Keramic art, 

 that its productions more perfectly adapt themselves to the fashion 

 of thought, to the fancies and ideas of each successive generation of 

 men, than those of any other human industry." 



