Pottery is an opaque ware composed of
various combinations of clay which afterward may or may not have a
coating of glaze put over it. But genuine porcelain is made from a
mixture of quite different materials--a mixture of decomposed feldspar
known as kaolin, and petuntse."
Mr. Croyden paused a moment.
"There are of course so-called porcelains made from other ingredients;
but we call them soft paste chinas, and do not rate them as true
porcelains. Only a hard paste, or kaolin ware, is acknowledged by
experts to be genuine porcelain. Now all this sounds very simple. By
putting the kaolin and the petuntse together in the right proportions,
moulding the clay, and afterward applying to it a glaze of some sort
the Chinese made their porcelain, and very beautiful porcelain it
was. Some day I will tell you more about it. This porcelain was not
only very hard but was semi-translucent; by that I mean that if it was
held to the light one could see the glow through it. It was not, of
course, transparent like glass. These two qualities of hardness and
translucence help us to distinguish porcelain from pottery."
Again Mr. Croyden stopped.
"For example, Canton ware, commonly known as Canton china, is not
really china at all, but is instead a fine quality of stone, or
earthenware, coated over with a slip or glaze containing porcelain.
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