Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

 72 BRITAIN AT WORK. branches of the work : the raw material is being prepared, the manufactured goods are being fired, and finished ware is being packed for delivery. Here are huge lorries bringing in heavy loads of the raw material to be prepared and made plastic for use. The white lumps of china clay from Cornwall, the grey and irregular masses of plastic clay from Dorset- shire, the quartz-like cubes of salmon- coloured felspar from Sweden, heaps of black flint boulders trom Dieppe, loads of saggar marl from the immediate locality—all these are gathered together to contribute to the complete formation of earthenware or china. As we follow the drivers we find them unloading their burdens upon great heaps of similar materials, from which supplies are taken as wanted. Here are great octagon tanks into which a bespattered worker is shovelling the various ingredients to be ground and agitated in water, and looking within we see hundreds of gallons of a kind of thick white cream churned up by rotary paddles. This, when consolidated, will form the plastic material of the ware. I his creamy substance is pumped into large box-like receptacles, having many partitions, between each of which canvas bags are fixed. 1 hese retain the clay, allowing the water to MILLING AND PUGGING CLAY, BRITANNIA POTTERY, GLASGOW. filter through. In these “ filter-presses,’’ as they are called, the clay is made supple and fit for use. We see the men unbolting the wooden trays which form the sections of these boxes, while others are removing the canvas bags from the plastic clay, peeling them off to be washed for future use. The clay within is rolled together like dough, and next thrown into the “ pug-mill,” which is neither more nor less than a huge sausage machine. From the lower encl of this the consolidated clay exudes in a long square stream ready to be formed into ware, as we shall see presently, on the upper floors. We are tempted, on passing, to glance into a large, beehive-looking shed or building, where the glowing fires within light up the interior. 1 his is the “ hovel,” and within the space seems to be filled by the tall, conical furnace or “oven.” Here a fireman appears to be recklessly shovelling unlimited fuel into sundry openings in the circular wall of the oven. It is difficult to realise that packed within at the present moment are thousands of pieces of incandescent ware now being embellished and perfected instead of de- stroyed by their fiery ordeal. Like some all-devouring monster whose hunger is in- satiable, the radiant “fire-hole” greedily consumes the apparently bountiful supply. Rut there is absolute method and accuracy in all that is taking place. Not a trifle more fuel is allowed when the fireman’s