=The Potter's Wheel.=--We illustrate (p. 40) the ingenious potter who is known as "The Thrower." It is he who, on a little revolving table between his knees pressed with his hands, magically transforms the lump of clay into beautiful shapes. Unfortunately, modern methods are eliminating the work of "the thrower," whose art dates back to the remotest past in the East when man first made clay into objects of beauty. We find the prophet Jeremiah saying, "Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter, so he made again another vessel as seemed good to the potter to make it."
Old Omar Khayyam brings a moral to bear on the potter and his wheel:
"Surely not in vain My substance from the common Earth was ta'en That He who subtly wrought me into shape Should stamp me back to common Earth again."
And Shakespeare, not to miss a good simile, makes one of his characters say, "My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel."
_By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._]
=The Pottery Kilns.=--The next stage is to convert the vessel thrown in soft clay, and put aside to dry, into being as a piece of pottery. There are three ovens, termed the "biscuit," the "glost," and the "enamel." In the illustration (p. 53) it is seen how the vessels are put into "saggers," which are boxes of fire-clay piled upon one another. The doorway is bricked up and plastered, and gradually the furnace is heated. Practically this "oven" illustrated is typical of the "biscuit" or the "glost" oven, the difference being in the temperature applied, the latter being at a much lower temperature.
It may be interesting to mention that a quick oven is three days in firing and three days in cooling before the ware is removed. For ornamental and important specimens of a very special nature as long a period as a month may be taken to fire and half that time to cool. But of course this is only in exceptional circumstances.
It conjures up a picture of the awful anxiety of some of the great master potters at the critical moment when the doorway is pulled down and the contents of the oven are drawn. It is here where the triumph or the failure of the potter manifests itself.