Reasons for its appearance. The earlier earthenware was brown in body. The Dutch potters in the seventeenth century covered their ware with an opaque white tin enamel to conceal the dark earthen body and to enable them to paint on its surface in imitation of Chinese porcelain. Stoneware, such as the jugs of early type known as Bellarmines, is of very vitreous earthenware fired so hard as to resist acids or the use of a file when applied to the surface. When glazed this class of ware has salt glaze. Dwight, of Fulham, introduced white, or nearly white, stoneware into England in his statuettes, which induced him to claim that he had discovered the secret of making porcelain. Cream ware followed later, and, perfected by Wedgwood, it was adopted as the standard earthenware of Staffordshire. It was the last note in earthenware till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Staffordshire potters invented an earthenware with a white body more nearly approaching porcelain in appearance. For fifty years experiments had been carried on, and this cream ware was whitened by a process called "blueing" by the use of cobalt to whiten the lead glaze. But the final invention was by Mason with his patent ironstone china, in which he produced a hard, white body.
How Earthenware is made.—A good deal of theory has found its way into print, but it is not every one, even among collectors, who has actually seen the various stages through which a lump of clay passes before it finally takes its place on the table as a teapot or a breakfast cup.
MILL FOR GRINDING RAW MATERIALS.
By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons.
It has, therefore, been thought of interest to illustrate a few steps in the process of this transformation of clay into vessels of utility and beauty. By the kindness of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, of Etruria, this series of illustrations appears, and the subjects have been chosen with a view to showing those processes of the potter which are practically the same as in the days of the great Josiah.
The first illustration ([p. 37]) shows an Exterior View of the Etruria Works, with the Cornish stone and the ball clays from Dorset and Devon and the flints lying in heaps exposed to the sun and frost in order to "weather." This exposure is considered advantageous, as the longer the clay is in the open the better it will work when required for use.
The second illustration ([p. 41]) shows a Corner of the old Etruria Works. The structure is practically the same as in the early days, and the bottom windows on the right have remained unaltered. The farthest at the bottom corner on the right was the room of old Josiah.