If any one should give you a lump of clay and ask you to make a bowl, how should you set about it? The first thing would be, of course, to put it on a table so you could work on it with both hands. You would make a depression at the top and push out the sides and smooth them as best you could. It would result in a rough, uneven sort of bowl, and before it was done, you would have made one discovery, namely, that if the table only turned around in front of you, you could see all sides of the bowl from the same position, and it would be easier to make it regular. This is just what the potter's wheel does. It is really two horizontal wheels. The upper one is a disk a foot or two in diameter. This is connected by a shaft with the lower one, which is much larger. When the potter was at work at a wheel of this sort, he stood on one foot and turned the lower wheel with the other, thus setting the upper wheel in motion. This was called a "kick-wheel." As wheels are made now, the potter sits at his work and turns the wheel by means of a treadle.

Almost any kind of clay will make a dish, but no one kind will make it so well that the addition of some other kind would not improve it. Whatever clays are chosen, they must be prepared with great care to make sure that not one grain in them is coarser than any other. Sometimes one will slip through, and you can see on the finished dish what a bad-looking place it makes. Even for the coarsest earthenware, such as flower-pots, the moist clay is forced down a cylinder and through a wire sieve; and for stoneware and porcelain it has to go through several processes. When flint and feldspar are used, they are ground fine at the quarry. On reaching the factory, they are mixed with the proper quantities of other clays—but in just what proportions is one of the secrets of the trade. Then they go into "plungers" or "blungers," great round tanks with arms extending from a shaft in the center. The shaft revolves and the arms beat the clay till all the sand and pebbles have settled on the bottom, and the fine clay grains are floating in the water above them. These pass into canvas bags. The water is forced out through the canvas, and on every bag there is left a thin sheet of moist clay. If this is to be used for the finest work, it is ground and pounded and washed still more, until it is a wonder that any of it survives; then it is sifted through a screen so fine that its meshes are only one one hundred and fiftieth of an inch across. Now it becomes "slip," and after a little more beating and tumbling about, it is ready to go to the man at the wheel.

This man is called the "thrower," because he lifts the lump of clay above his head and throws it down heavily upon the center of the wheel. The things that happen to that lump of clay when he touches it and the wheel revolves seem like the work of magic. He presses his thumbs into it from above and draws the walls up between his thumbs and fingers. He clasps his hands around it, and it grows tall and slender. He lays his finger on the top of the little column of clay, and it flattens in a moment. He points his finger at it, barely touching it, and a little groove appears, running around the whole mass. He seems to be wasting considerable time in playing with it, but all the while he is making sure that the clay is perfectly uniform and that there are no bubbles of air in it. He holds a piece of leather against the outside surface and a wet sponge against the inside, to make them perfectly smooth; and in a moment he has made a bowl. He holds his bent finger against the top of the bowl, and it becomes a vase. With another touch of his magical finger the top of the vase rolls over into a lip. If he makes a cup or a mug, he models a handle in clay and fastens it in place with slip. When it is done, he draws a wire deftly between the article and the table, and puts it on a board to dry.

When you watch a potter at work, it all looks so simple and easy that you feel sure you could do it; but see how skillfully he uses his hands, how strong they are, and yet how lithe and delicate in their movements. See into what odd positions he sometimes stretches them; and yet these are plainly the only positions in which they could do their work. See how every finger does just what he wishes it to do. Notice all these things, and you will not be so certain that making pottery is the easiest thing in the world.

No two pieces of hand work are exactly the same; and skillful as the potter is, his pieces are not precisely alike. Many of them therefore are passed over to the turner for finishing. He uses an ordinary lathe, and with this he thins any place that may be a little too thick, rounds the edge, and smooths it. The article is partly dried when he takes it, and so its walls can be cut thinner. When it leaves his lathe, all signs of hand work have vanished, but the dish is exactly like the others of the set, and this is what the greater number of people want. In some potteries there is hardly a throwing wheel in use, and articles are formed in plaster of Paris moulds. There are two ways of using these moulds. By one method, the mould is put upon a "jigger," a power machine which keeps it revolving, and clay is pressed against its walls from within. Above the mould is a piece of iron cut in the shape of the inside curve of the bowl or whatever is being made. This skims off all the extra clay from the inside of the walls. Plates and saucers are made on a jigger. The mould used for this work is a model of the top of the plate. The workman makes a sort of pancake of clay and throws it upon the mould. A second mould, shaped like half of the bottom of the plate, is brought down close and revolves, cutting off all the extra clay and shaping the bottom of the plate.

When the very finest ware is to be made, the mould is used in quite another fashion. If a pitcher, for instance, is to be cast, the mould is made in two sections and tied tightly together. Then the slip is poured into it and left for a while. The plaster of Paris absorbs the water and a layer of clay is formed all about the walls. When this is thick enough, the liquid is poured out, and after the pitcher has dried awhile, the mould is carefully opened and the pitcher is very gently taken out. The handle is made in a little mould of its own and fastened on with slip. "Eggshell" porcelain is made in this way. The clay shell becomes smaller as it dries, so there is no trouble about removing it from the mould—if one knows how. If a large article is to be cast, the mould is made in sections. Of course this fine ware must all be made by hand, especially as machines do not work well with the finest clays; but cheap dishes are all made by machinery.

After any clay article is thrown, or moulded, or cast, it is passed through a little doorway and set upon a shelf in a great revolving cage. The air in this cage is kept at about 85°F.; but this heat is nothing to what is to follow; and after the articles are thoroughly dry, they are placed in boxes of coarse fire-clay, which are called "saggers," piled up in a kiln, the doors are closed, and the fires are lighted. For a day and night, sometimes for two days and two nights, the fires burn. The heat goes up to 2000° or 2500°F. Every few hours test pieces, which were put in for this purpose, are taken out. When they are found to be sufficiently baked, the fire-holes are bricked up and the furnace is left for two days longer to cool. The ware is then called "biscuit."

Biscuit is dull and porous. It is soon to be glazed, but first whatever underglaze decorating is desired may be done. Sometimes the decorations are painted by hand, and sometimes they are printed on thin paper, laid upon the ware, and rubbed softly till they stick fast. After a while the paper is pulled off, but the colors remain. Gold must be applied over the glaze, and the article fired a second time.

After this decorating, the ware is generally passed to a man who stands before a tub of glaze, and dips in each article, though sometimes he stands before the pieces of ware and sprays them with an air brush. Many different kinds of glaze are used, made of ground flint, feldspar, white clay, and other substances. Common sea salt works exceedingly well, not in liquid form, but thrown directly into the fire. The chief thing to look out for in making a glaze is to see that the materials in it are so nearly like those in the ware that they will not contract unevenly and make little cracks. This glaze is dried in a hot room, then looked over by "trimmers," who scrape it off from such parts as the feet of cups and plates, so that they will not stick to the saggers in firing. Besides this, little props of burned clay are used to hold the dishes up and keep them from touching one another. These props have fanciful names, such as "spurs," "stilts," "cockspurs," etc. Often you can see on the bottom of a plate the marks made by these supports.

The articles now are sent to a kiln to be fired. When they come out there is another chance for decorating, for colors may be put on, and another firing will make them look like underglaze painting If the decorator wishes the ware to have the appearance of being ornamented with masses of gold, he can trace his design in yellow paste, fire it, cover it with gold, and fire it again. To make the "gilt-band china" so beloved by the good housewives of the last century, the decorator puts the plate upon a horizontal wheel, holds his brush full of gold against it, and turns the wheel slowly. Sometimes the outlines of a design are printed and the coloring put in by hand. When broad bands of color are desired to be put around a plate or other article, the decorator sometimes brushes on an adhesive oil where the color is to go, and paints the rest of the plate with some water-color and sugar; then when the oil is partly dry, he dusts on the color in the form of powder. A plunge into water will wash away the water-color and leave the oil with the powder sticking to it. Shaded groundwork is made with an atomizer. Indeed, there are almost as many methods of decorating wares of clay as there are persons who work at it. The results are what might be expected from the prices; some articles are so cheap and gaudy that any one will soon tire of them. Others are really artistic and will be a "joy forever"—until they break.