At the present day there is only one district in Europe where true porcelain is manufactured on a large scale. This district lies on the western and south-western border of the central granitic plateau of France, especially in the Limousin and in Berry. Again at Sèvres, for the last hundred years and more, a succession of able chemists has carried on a series of experiments on the composition and preparation of porcelain. It is no wonder, then, if we find that the literature concerned with these practical departments is almost entirely French. One result of this is a greater richness in technical terms than with us. We find in France names for the various implements and processes of the potter’s art, that are something better than the workshop terms of the local potter. Again, the little that has been written in England upon the technology of pottery has been concerned chiefly with earthenware of Staffordshire.[6] As for the English soft-paste porcelain of the eighteenth century, there is a remarkable dearth of information both as to its composition and as to its manufacture. We know in fact in much greater detail how the great potteries at King-te-chen were carried on at the same period, thanks to the letters of the Père D’Entrecolles, and to the information collected in Dr. Bushell’s great work, _Oriental Ceramic Art_ (New York, 1899. I shall always quote from the text edition). The following technical notes are based chiefly on the processes in use either at Sèvres or in the great factories of the Limoges district.[7] To begin with the Kaolin, the ‘premier’ element in the composition of porcelain. The greatest care is taken to procure a pure white clay which should approach as near as possible to the more or less theoretical mineral kaolinite, _i.e._ to a hydrous silicate of alumina. With this object the rough china-clay brought from the pit is thrown into a large tank of water and broken up with wooden spades; the milky liquid is now decanted into a second tank, leaving behind most of the quartz and the other stony particles. On its way the soup-like liquid passes through the meshes of a sieve--these may be formed either of brass wire or sometimes of finely woven silk. On this sieve all but the finest particles are retained. The greater part of the kaolin is deposited in this second tank, but a certain portion still remains suspended in the liquid, which is again decanted; the remaining kaolin then settles down in the third tank, yielding the finest clay. To dry this slimy mass, it is first forced by hydraulic pumps into canvas bags, and these bags are then pressed between fluted wooden trays, strongly clamped together. We have now got a white chalky mass which may contain as much as 98 per cent. of the hydrated silicate of alumina.