In conversation with the President of the Academy of Science at St. Petersburgh, who some years ago visited this district, and with other gentlemen distinguished in science and art, we have heard the highest admiration expressed of these clays of the Severn Valley. Indeed, the very handsome public structures—now that prejudice is giving way, and that improved and more artistic treatment of the material predominates—which we see in towns erected upon true architectural principles, and by professors of classical and constructive styles of decoration, are sufficient indications of the capability of the material in all its varieties for producing works of a very high order of merit, with a light and aerial effect not found in the old red brick, nor even in many of the stone erections, of former times. Besides bricks and tiles, these clays have been turned to account from very early periods in other ways, as for pottery, for instance, of different kinds. We have no reliable authority for fixing the date at which the art of potting was first practised in Shropshire, but it appears clear that the articles were of the simplest kind, being almost uniformly domestic: those in daily use, such as milk-pans, dishes, tea-pots, jugs, and mugs. The latter were substitutes for the drinking horns, which later improvements in the plastic and ceramic arts have driven out of use. We have an ancient specimen of one made at the Pitchyard, and a drawing of another made at Haybrook, well _potted_, and elegant in shape. The latter is the best manipulated, and probably it was from this circumstance that the latter work was called “The Mug-House.” In evidence adduced sometime since in an Election Scrutiny at Bewdley, a public-house referred to was called the “Mughouse,” which house is situated on the Severn, at a point where the bargemen, who formerly drew the vessels up the river instead of horses, were in the habit of stopping to get mugs of ale. “Tots” were made out of the same kind of clay, but smaller, and were used when the men drank in company; hence a person who had drank too much was supposed to have been with a convivial party, and was said to have been “totty,” a word often found in old works. Tots had no handles, and some of the old drinking cups, more particularly those of glass of Anglo Saxon make, were rounded at the bottom that they should not stand upright, and that a man may empty them at a draught,—the custom continuing till later times gave rise to our modern name of tumbler. The small tots had no handles; the mug had a “stouk,” as it is called, consisting of a single piece of clay, flattened and bent over into a loop. The ware was similar to the famous “Rockingham ware” made on the estate of Earl Fitzwilliam, near Wentworth.