Fig. 1--Jar of Wan Li period, enamelled. Mark, a hare. Height 9 inches. _British Museum._ Fig. 2. Bowl with Eight Immortals in relief, coloured glazes on the biscuit. Height 3¼ inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._ Figs. 3, 4 and 5.--Blue and white porcelain, early seventeenth century. Height of Fig. 5, 17 inches. _British Museum._] [Illustration: Plate 83.--Vase With blue and white decoration of rockery, phœnixes, and flowering shrubs. Found in India. Late Ming period. Height 22 inches. _Halsey Collection._] CHAPTER VI THE TECHNIQUE OF THE MING PORCELAIN Although the processes involved in the various kinds of decoration and in the different wares have been discussed in their several places, a short summary of those employed in the manufacture of the Ching-tê Chên porcelain during the Ming period will be found convenient. The bulk of the materials required were found in the surrounding districts, if not actually in the Fou-liang Hsien. The best kaolin (or porcelain earth) was mined in the Ma-ts’ang mountains until the end of the sixteenth century, when the supply was exhausted and recourse was had to another deposit at Wu-mên-t’o. The quality of the Wu-mên-t’o kaolin was first-rate, but as the cost of transport was greater and the manager of the Imperial factory refused to pay a proportionately higher price, very little was obtained. The material for the large dragon bowls, and presumably for the other vessels of abnormal size, was obtained from Yü-kan and Wu-yüan and mixed with powdered stone (_shih mo_) from the Hu-t’ien district. Other kaolins, brought from Po-yang Hsien and the surrounding parts, were used by the private potters, not being sufficiently fine for the Imperial wares. The porcelain stone, which combined with the kaolin to form the two principal ingredients of true porcelain, came from the neighbourhoods of Yü-kan and Wu-yüan, where it was pounded and purified in mills worked by the water power of the mountains, arriving at Ching-tê Chên in the form of briquettes. Hence the name _petuntse_,[214] which, like kaolin, has passed into our own language, and the term _shih mo_ (powdered stone) used above.