In these, however, nothing but soft porcelain
was made. This was a mixture of white clay and fine white sand from
Alum bay, in the Isle of Wight, to which such a proportion of pounded
glass was added as, without causing the ware to soften so as to
lose its form, would give it when exposed to a full red heat a
semi-transparency resembling that of the fine porcelain of China. The
Chelsea ware, besides bearing a very imperfect similarity in body to
the Chinese, admitted only of a very fusible lead glaze; and in the
taste of its patterns, and in the style of their execution, stood
as low perhaps as any on the list. The china works at Derby come, I
believe, the next in date; then those of Worcester, established in
1751: and the most modern are those of Coalport, in Shropshire; of the
neighbourhood of Newcastle, in Staffordshire, and in other parts of
that county.
The porcelain clay used at present in all the English works is
obtained in Cornwall, by pounding and washing over the gray
disintegrated granite which occurs in several parts of that county: by
this means the quartz and mica are got rid of, and the clay resulting
from the decomposition of the felspar is procured in the form of a
white, somewhat gritty powder.
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