Something has already been said[288] of another very distinctive class of blue and white for which the misleading name of “soft paste” has been widely adopted. The term is of American origin and has been too readily accepted, for it is not only inaccurate as a description, but is already current in Europe for a totally different ware, which it describes with greater exactitude, viz. the artificial, glassy porcelains made at Sèvres and Chelsea and other factories, chiefly in France and England, in the middle of the eighteenth century. In actual fact the Chinese ware to which the term “soft paste” is applied has an intensely hard body. The glaze, however, which is softer than that of the ordinary porcelain, contains a proportion of lead, and if not actually crackled from the first becomes so in use, the crackle lines being usually irregular and undecided. A detailed description of the manufacture of this ware is given by Père d’Entrecolles,[289] though he is probably at fault in supposing that its chief ingredient was a recent discovery in 1722. It was made, he says, with a mineral called _hua shih_ (in place of kaolin), a stone of glutinous and soapy nature, and almost certainly corresponding to the steatite or “soapy rock” which was used by the old English porcelain makers at Bristol, Worcester and Liverpool. “The porcelain made with _hua shih_,” to quote Père d’Entrecolles, “is rare and far more expensive than the other porcelain. It has an extremely fine grain; and for purposes of painting, when compared with ordinary porcelain, it is almost as vellum to paper. Moreover, this ware is surprisingly light to anyone accustomed to handle the other kinds; it is also far more fragile than the ordinary, and there is difficulty in finding the exact temperature for its firing. Some of the potters do not use _hua shih_ for the body of the ware, but content themselves with making a diluted slip into which they dip their porcelain when dry, so as to give it a coating of soapstone before it is painted and glazed. By this means it acquires a certain degree of beauty.” The preparation of the _hua shih_ is also described, but it is much the same as that of the kaolin, and the composition of the steatitic body is given as eight parts of _hua shih_ to two of porcelain stone (_petuntse_). There are, then, two kinds of steatitic porcelain, one with the body actually composed of _hua shih_ and the other with a mere surface dressing of this material. The former is light to handle, and opaque; and the body has a dry, earthy appearance, though it is of fine grain and unctuous to touch. It is variously named by the Chinese[290] _sha-t’ai_ (sand bodied) and _chiang-t’ai_ (paste bodied), and when the glaze is crackled it is further described as _k’ai pien_ (crackled).