June 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



ON GRANITE AND ITS USES. 509 



are disallowed by our ablest English classical scholars. We have, cer- 

 tainly, from the Latin the term " fictile" art, in allusion to the great 

 plasticity of unbaked clay. 



Fictile is the best title, if we are to employ a foreign word, not very 

 familiar to all. This I am slow to do, but we have scarcely a choice, for 

 no adjective is readily derivable from the word " pottery," whilst such 

 an adjective is often needed. 



The plasticity of wet clay is its characteristic property, and permits 

 it to be moulded into all shapes. The potter from the oldest times has 

 turned this to ample account by that very ancient machine, the potter's 

 wheel, of which, did time permit, I could say much. I will only ob- 

 serve on the whole subject that, keeping to our own old English word 

 " pottery," we include under it two things, namely, earthenware, i.e., earth 

 or clay (silicate of alumina), baked in the sun, or burned in the kiln, 

 and china or porcelain. The last word is said to be derived through 

 the Portuguese, from the same Latin root whiclryields our English term 

 pork. The Portuguese, after their discovery of the passage to the East 

 round the Cape of Good Hope, brought the fictile productions of China, 

 for the first time, largely to Europe. They called the material of those 

 wares porcelain, from its surface and polish resembling those of certain 

 shells belonging to the genus Cyprsea, often seen on our mantelpieces, 

 and familiar, probably to all, as represented by the common cowry. 

 These shells they had long been in the habit of likening to young swine, 

 and to them they also likened the porcelain cups, which they thought 

 resembled them. 



By a curious coincidence we have long been in the custom in Scot- 

 land of applying the term " pig" to a stoneware vessel ; a use of the 

 word which surprises an Englishman, and still more an Irishman, but 

 would probably please a Portuguese. Our Scotch term, which is not 

 generally associated with the notion of an animal, is said to be of 

 Celtic origin, but this seems scarcely reconcileable with its wide em- 

 ployment in our Lowlands, where I believe it is more familiar than in 

 the Gaelic districts of the country. Be this as it may, we can find an 

 expressive English term for china or porcelain. Earthenware is other- 

 wise clayware, i.e., clay or crumbled felspar (silicate of alumina), 

 thoroughly dried, and intesely heated, but not fused or vitrified. Porce- 

 lain is clay and glassware, i.e., clay and vitreous matter (which may be 

 of many kinds) incorporated, and heated till they are semifused into a 

 mass, which combines the opaque rigidity and earthiness of the clay, 

 with the transparency and elasticity of the glass. Between indurated 

 earth, such as we have in a flower-pot, and perfect glass, we may pro- 

 duce by suitable mixtures a very large number of intermediate " wares," 

 admitting of almost endless modifications, and of application to as 

 many arts. 



Under clay, and the alumina (oxide of aluminium) which occurs in 

 it, large reference might be made to the applications of compounds of 



