The whole are well mixed by proper agitation, half dried in the troughs of the slip-kiln, and then subjected to the machine for cutting up the clay into junks. The above paste, when baked, is very white, hard, sonorous, and susceptible of receiving all sorts of impressions from the paper engravings. When the silica is mixed with the alumina in the above proportions, it forms a compact ware, and the impression remains fixed between the biscuit and the glaze, without communicating to either any portion of the tint of the metallic colour employed in the engraver’s press. The felspar gives strength to the biscuit, and renders it sonorous after being baked; while the china clay has the double advantage of imparting an agreeable whiteness and great closeness of grain.
PRECIPITATE, is any matter separated in minute particles from the bosom of a fluid, which subsides to the bottom of the vessel in a pulverulent form.
PRECIPITATION, is the actual subsidence of a precipitate.
PRESS, HYDRAULIC. Though the explanation of the principles of this powerful machine belongs to a work upon mechanical engineering, rather than to one upon manufactures, yet as it is often referred to in this volume, a brief description of it cannot be unacceptable to many of my readers.
The framing consists of two stout cast-iron plates a, b, which are strengthened by projecting ribs, not seen in the section, [fig. 909.] The top or crown plate b, and the base-plate a, a, are bound most firmly together by 4 cylinders of the best wrought iron, c, c, which pass up through holes near the ends of the said plates, and are fast wedged in them. The flat pieces e, e, are screwed to the ends of the crown and base plates, so as to bind the columns laterally. f, is the hollow cylinder of the press, which, as well as the ram g, is made of cast iron. The upper part of the cavity of the cylinder is cast narrow, but is truly and smoothly rounded at the boring-mill, so as to fit pretty closely round a well-turned ram or piston; the under part of it is left somewhat wider in the casting. A stout cup of leather, perforated in the middle, is put upon the ram, and serves as a valve to render the neck of the cylinder perfectly water-tight, by filling up the space between it and the ram; and since the mouth of the cup is turned downwards, the greater the pressure of water upwards, the more forcibly are the edges of the leather valve pressed against the inside of the cylinder, and the tighter does the joint become. This was Bramah’s beautiful invention.
Upon the top of the ram, the press-plate or table, strengthened with projecting ridges, rests, which is commonly called the follower, because it follows the ram closely in its descent. This plate has a half-round hole at each of its four corners, corresponding to the shape of the four iron columns along which it glides in its up-and-down motions of compression and relaxation.
