The idea that salt glazing was accidentally discovered at Bagnal by some strong brine solution boiling away in an earthen pot which became automatically glazed[25] may be dismissed at once for the simple reason that it could not happen as described. It may be urged too in Elers’ favour that, long before this, salt glazing was practised in Germany. Again, Aikin in his “History of Manchester,” written in 1794, gives an elaborate account of the novelty as practised by Elers. He writes: “It was in the memory of some old persons with whom a friend of ours was well acquainted that the inhabitants of Burslem flocked with astonishment to see the immense volumes of smoke which arose from the Dutchmen’s ovens on casting in the salt; a circumstance which sufficiently shows the novelty of this practice in Staffordshire Potteries.”[26] Probably this part of Dr Aikin’s work was written by Alex. Chisholm, secretary to Josiah Wedgwood. At least the same story was told to Josiah Wedgwood in 1765 by an old workman named Steel, aged 84, who could remember the Dutchmen at work at Bradwell, and who joined those who ran to the place amazed at this unusual mode of firing. No doubt this is what was in Wedgwood’s mind when he wrote to Bentley in 1777, as quoted above. On the other hand we have the evidence of Simeon Shaw,[27] first that William Adams and Thomas Miles produced salt glaze in 1680 (a very doubtful supposition in view of the Chancery suit recently discovered), and then that “Mr. John Mountford, 27 years since (i.e. in 1801), took down the remains of the (Elers’) oven, and he states that the height was about 7 feet, but not like the salt-glaze ovens.” And again: “E. Wood and J. Riley both separately measured the inside diameter of the remains, at about 5 feet; while other ovens, of the same date, in Burslem, were 10 or 12 feet. The oven itself had 5 mouths, but neither holes over the inside flues nor bags, to receive the salt, had any been used by them.” “The foundations,” he adds, “were very distinctly to be seen in 1808, though now covered by an enlargement of the barn.” Also there is the fact that no salt glaze ware that could be conclusively shown to be Elers’ has ever been excavated on the site of his factory, except the white voice-pipes previously mentioned. Taking everything into consideration—the impossibility of saying definitely who the makers of early pieces of salt glaze were; the possibility of Elers having made his salt-glaze in a different oven and on a different site to that seen and excavated; the fact that in 1710-1715 Staffordshire potters were making stoneware, and that Plot does not mention it in 1677—none but Garner and the Wedgwoods were sued for making even stoneware in 1693—we may assume that the Elers did, in actual fact, introduce the salt glaze into North Staffordshire.