upon these vessels; and it is only rinsing them in hot water, and wiping them with a cloth, and they are clean.

The making of an earthen bowl would be to a man who made a first attempt no easy matter. Let us see how it is done, so that it can be carried two or three hundred miles and sold for two-pence, leaving a profit to the maker, and the wholesale and retail dealer.

The common pottery is made of pure clay and pure flint. The flint is found only in the chalk counties, and the fine clays in Devonshire and Dorsetshire; so that the materials out of which the pottery is made, have to be carried from the South of England to Staffordshire, where the potteries are situated.

The great advantage that Staffordshire possesses, is abundance of coal to burn the ware and supply the engines that grind the materials.

The clay is worked in water by various machinery till it contains no single piece large enough to be visible to the eye. It is like cream in consistence. The flints are burned. They are first ground in a mill and then worked in water in the same manner as the clay, the large pieces being returned a second time to the mill.

When both are fine enough, one part of flint is mixed with five or six of clay; the whole is worked to a paste, after which it is kneaded either by the hands or a machine; and when the kneading is completed it is ready for the potter.

He has a little wheel which lies horizontally. He lays a portion of clay on the centre of the wheel, puts one hand, or finger if the vessel is to be a small one, in the middle, and his other hand on the outside, and, as the wheel turns rapidly round, draws up a hollow vessel in an instant. With his hands, or with very simple tools, he brings it to the shape he wishes, cuts it from the wheel with a wire, and a boy carries it off. The potter makes vessel after vessel, as fast as they can be carried away.

They are partially dried; after which they are turned on a lathe and smoothed with a wet sponge

when necessary.

Only round vessels can be made on the wheel; those of other shapes are made in moulds of plaster.

Handles and other solid parts are pressed in moulds, and stuck on while they and the vessels are still wet.

The vessels thus formed are first dried in a stove, and, when dry, burnt in a kiln. They are in this state called biscuit. If they are finished white, they are glazed by another process. If they are figured, the patterns are engraved on copper, and printed on coarse paper rubbed with soft soap. The ink is made of some color that will stand the fire, ground with earthy matter. These patterns are moistened, and applied to the porous biscuit, which absorbs the color, and the paper is washed off, leaving the pattern on the biscuit.

The employment of machinery to do all the heavy part of the work, the division of labor, by which each workman acquires wonderful dexterity in his department, and the conducting of the whole upon a large scale, give bread to a vast number of people, make the pottery cheap, and enable it to be sold at a profit in almost every market in the world. It is not seventy years since the first pottery of a good quality was extensively made in England; and before that time what was used was imported, the common ware from Delf, in Holland, (from which it acquired its name,) and the porcelain from China. We now annually export thirty-eight million pieces of earthenware to all parts of the world.

men.

CHAPTER XIII.

If the facts which we have stated in the preceding chapters have been duly considered, it appears to us that you cannot much doubt (if you have any doubt at all) that in articles of the most absolute necessity, machinery has at the same time diminished the cost of production, and added to the numbers of the workWithout machinery, as we have shown, it would be impossible to raise food, to manufacture implements, to supply fuel and water, to carry on communication, to produce clothes, to build houses and furnish them, and to distribute knowledge, either at all, or at least at a price which should allow all men, more or less, to partake these great blessings of civilization. In the present chapter, we propose to show you some very curious effects of machinery, in the production of articles of inferior value, certainly to those chief necessaries of life which we have mentioned; but which are in such general use amongst all of us, however trifling they may appear in themselves, that the want of them would be felt as a severe privation. Without machines they could not be made at all; or they would be made very coarsely, as mere curiosities. With machines they are made in such

numbers that they constitute very large branches of trade, and give employment to hundreds of thousands of people, in assisting the machines, or in perfecting what they produce.

There is an article employed in dress, which is at once so necessary and so beautiful, that the highest lady in the land uses it, and yet so cheap, that the poorest peasant's wife is enabled to procure it. The quality of the article is as perfect as art can make it; and yet, from the enormous quantities consumed by the great mass of the people, it is made so cheap that the poor can purchase the best kind, as well as the rich. It is an article of universal use. United with machinery, many hundreds, and even thousands, are employed in making it. But if the machinery were to stop, and the article were made by human hands alone, it would become so dear that the richest only could afford to use it; and it would become, at the same time, so rough in its appearance, that those very rich would be ashamed of using it. The article we mean is a pin.

Machinery of all kinds is difficult to be described by words. It is not necessary for us to describe the machinery used in pin-making, to make you comprehend its effects. A pin is made of brass. You have seen how metal is obtained from ore by machinery, and, therefore, we will not go over that ground. But suppose the most skilful workman has a lump of brass ready by his side, to make it into pins with common