KAOLIN.
Pure clay is, theoretically, composed of this mineral alone, but pure clay does not exist in Nature, except as a mineralogical curiosity. What is generally called pure clay is a white, or light-grey plastic material, composed of kaolin with many other substances to a small degree, from which it frequently has to, as far as possible, be separated before being put to its highest uses in porcelain manufacture. Chemically, pure kaolin may be regarded as a hydrous silicate of alumina, viz.—silica = 46.3, alumina = 39.8, and water = 13.9. Under the microscope, in reflected light, it is seen to be made up of extremely minute, thin, six-sided plates, which are said (doubtfully) to crystallize in the rhombic system; though, when regarded with the naked eye, one would not suppose that it possessed a crystalline structure, as it appears to be an earthy, unctuous substance. It is commonly mixed with grains and small crystals and fragments of quartz, which mineral will presently be described. Being derived from the decomposition of felspars, the microscope reveals the fact that in addition to the six-sided plates alluded to, a great deal of opaque matter, as particles of mud, occurs in the substance universally known as kaolin. It is very difficult to satisfactorily state what this mud is; micro-chemically, its general character may be brought out. There is no doubt, however, that in converting the kaolin into china-ware, these particles are more active than the minute kaolin crystals in uniting with other substances to form a species of flux. The subject has been investigated to a very limited extent, but from the foregoing observations it will be seen that the proportion of amorphous mud particles to the minute crystals must be an important factor in determining the nature of the fluxing material, and of the quantity of this latter to be used. Correlatively, the fusing point can be determined in the same manner. For, in itself, kaolin is an infusible mineral, and before it can be made use of for brickmaking, terra-cotta, or any kindred purpose, it must be rendered artificially fusible by the addition of a fluxing substance. When, therefore, we learn that kaolin is being used for these purposes, we know, if used direct as it comes from the pit, that it must be impure from a mineralogical standpoint, or that it is being mixed with other substances. We say that kaolin is infusible (refractory); we mean at any temperature used in the industrial arts, including brickmaking. With the recent improvements in the electric furnace, the temperature generated is so high that practically any mineral substance may be melted; it is hard to speak of anything being infusible.
But the mineral matter called kaolin in ordinary clays, such as the brown and blue London Clay, the Oxford Clay, “brick-earths,” etc., has very little in common with the more or less pure china-clay. The microscope shows that in the vast majority of such clays scales of true kaolin are few and far between, that opaque mud particles are more frequent, and, above all, that pieces of highly decomposed felspar (called “kaolinised” matter) are present. Eliminating all other and foreign substances from the clay, the whole of what would commonly be called kaolin and kaolinised matter, taken together, is of very varied chemical composition, and might, indeed, be fusible in the ordinary sense of that term. From this, the reader will perceive that the term kaolin is very ambiguous and altogether too wide in its meaning. We think it highly desirable, therefore, to describe kaolin as a true mineral and not as a rock, reserving the term for the crystalline plates. The mud particles referred to we may call “kaolinised particles;” and the highly decomposed felspar “kaolinised matter.” To sum up the relative fusibility of these substances, per se, we should say that (1) kaolin crystals are practically infusible; (2) kaolinised particles are either fusible, partly fusible, or infusible, depending on the actual nature of the particles; and (3) that kaolinised matter may be difficultly fusible or infusible. A mixture of (1) and (2) may not be fusible, and could not be unless a great proportion of (2) of a fusible character, so as to form a flux, were present. The reasons for this will appear in considering the different kinds of felspar, next to be described.