STONE-WARE, and PORCELAIN.
The wheel and lathe are the chief and almost the
only instruments in pottery: the first for large works,
and the last for small. The potters-wheel consists prin-
cipally in the nut, which is a beam or axis, whose foot
or pivot plays perpendicularly on a free-stone sole or
bottom. From the four corners of this beam, which
does not exceed two feet in height, arise four iron
bars, called the spokes of the wheel; which forming
diagonal lines with the beam, descend, and are fastened
at bottom to the edges of a strong wooden circle,
four feet in diameter, perfectly like the felloes of a
coach-wheel, except that it has neither axis nor radii,
and is only joined to the beam, which serves it as an
axis by the iron bars. The top of the nut is flat, of
a circular figure, and a foot in diameter: and on this
is laid the clay which is to be turned and fashioned.
The wheel thus disposed, is encompassed with four
sides of four different pieces of wood fastened on a
wooden frame; the hind-piece, which is that on which
the workman sits, is made a little inclining towards
the wheel; on the fore-piece are placed the prepared
earth; on the side-pieces he rests his feet, and these
are made inclining to give him more or less room. Ha-
ving prepared the earth, the potter lays a round piece
of it on the circular head of the nut, and sitting down
turns the wheel with his feet till it has got the proper
velocity; then, wetting his hands with water, he
presses his fist or his fingers-ends into the middle of
the lump, and thus forms the cavity of the vessel, con-
tinuing to widen it from the middle; and thus turn-
ing the inside into form with one hand, while he pro-
portions the outside with the other, the wheel con-
stantly turning all the while, and he wetting his
hands from time to time. When the vessel is too
thick, he uses a flat piece of iron, somewhat sharp on
the edge, to pare off what is redundant; and when it
is finished, it is taken off from the circular head, by a
wire passed under the vessel.
The potters-lathe is also a kind of wheel, but more
simple and slight than the former; its three chief mem-
bers are an iron beam or axis three feet and a half
high, and two feet and a half diameter, placed hori-
zontally at the top of the beam, and serving to form
the vessel upon: and another larger wooden wheel, all
of a piece, three inches thick, and two or three feet
broad, fastened to the same beam at the bottom, and
parallel to the horizon. The beam or axis turns by a
pivot at the bottom in an iron stand. The workman
gives the motion to the lathe with his feet, by pushing
the great wheel alternately with each foot, still giving
it a greater or lesser degree of motion as his work re-
quires. They work with the lathe, with the same in-
struments, and after the same manner, as with the
wheel. The mouldings are formed by holding a piece
of wood or iron cut in the form of the moulding to
the vessel, while the wheel is turning round; but the
feet and handles are made by themselves and set on
with the hand; and if there be any sculpture in the
work, it is usually done in wooden moulds, and stuck up piece by piece on the outside of the vessel. For the glazing of the work, see GLAZING.