PREFACE.
The object of this series is to bring into one focus the leadingfeatures and present position of the most important industries of thekingdom, so as to enable the general reader to comprehend the enormousdevelopment that has taken place within the last twenty or thirtyyears. It is evident that the great increase in education throughoutthe country has tended largely to foster a simultaneous interest intechnical knowledge, as evinced by the spread of Art and ScienceSchools, Trade Museums, International Exhibitions, &c.; and this factis borne out by a perusal of the daily papers, in which the prominencegiven to every improvement in trade or machinery attests the desire ofthe reading public to know more about these matters. Here, however,the difficulty commences, for the only means of acquiring thisinformation are from handbooks to the various manufactures (which areusually too minute in detail for general instruction), from tradejournals and the reports of scientific societies; and to obtain andsystematize these scattered details is a labour and a tax upon timeand patience which comparatively few persons care to surmount. Inthese volumes all these facts are gathered together and presented inas readable a form as is compatible with accuracy and a freedom fromsuperficiality; and though they do not lay claim to being a technicalguide to each industry, the names of the contributors are a sufficientguarantee that they are a reliable and standard work of reference.Great stress is laid on the progressive developments of themanufactures, and the various applications to them of the collateralarts and sciences; the history of each is truly given, while presentprocesses and recent inventions are succinctly described.
BRITISH MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.
POTTERY.
By L. Arnoux, Art Director and Superintendent of Minton'sFactory.
Without entering into an elaborate dissertation on the antiquity ofthe Art of Pottery, which would be out of place in so short an articleas this, I will briefly state that the practice of making vessels fromplastic clays, for holding liquids and provisions, first resulted fromthe exertions made by man to emerge from his primary condition. It isa well known fact that vessels of clay, only partially baked, havebeen found, together with stone implements belonging to prehistorictimes, and that those vessels, unfinished as they were, had peculiarcharacteristics. But supposing that this was not so, it must strikeeverybody that, after providing himself with those rude instrumentswherewith to obtain his food and protect his life, man must have takenadvantage of his power of observation to notice the property ofplastic clay to retain water, and to find out to what useful purposeit might be brought for making vessels better suited to his wants,than the skins of animals or pieces of wood roughly hollowed out. Ifnot probable, it is however not impossible, that the first man, takingin his hand a lump of soft clay, should have tried to give it adefined shape, in whic