THE reader will have noticed that the word porcelain, which was avoided in the discussion of the earlier periods, has insensibly crept into the chapters which deal with the Sung wares. It was no longer right or proper that it should be excluded, and it is high time that our attitude on the interesting question of its origin was defined. Unfortunately, that attitude is still--and must necessarily remain--one of doubt and uncertainty, but we can at least clear away some of the existing misapprehensions on the subject. The myth which carried back the manufacture of porcelain some eighteen centuries before our era has been definitely discredited, and the snuff bottles supposed to have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs which gave rise to the idea are now known to be of quite modern make. The more modest computation which placed the invention in the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.) might have been almost as lightly dismissed had not Dr. Bushell, after disposing of the theory in his _Oriental Ceramic Art_[292] in 1899, seen fit to reverse his decision in later publications.[293] The reasons given for this later attitude are on the surface so convincing that it is necessary to consider them in detail and to examine the authorities on which they are based. Bushell's statement runs as follows: "It is generally agreed that porcelain was first made in China, but authorities differ widely in fixing a date for its invention. The Chinese attribute its invention to the Han dynasty, when a new character _tz'ŭ_ was coined to designate, presumably, a new substance. The official memoir on 'Porcelain Administration' in the topography of Fou-liang, the first edition of which was published in 1270, says that according to local tradition the ceramic works at Hsin-p'ing (an old name of Fou-liang) were founded in the time of the Han dynasty, and had been in constant operation ever since. This is confirmed by T'ang Ying, the celebrated superintendent of the Imperial potteries, appointed in 1728, who states in his autobiography that the result of his researches shows that porcelain was first made during the Han dynasty at Ch'ang-nan (Ching-tê Chên), in the district of Fou-liang."