The elevator brought up with a jerk.
"Here we are!" exclaimed Mr. Marwood. "At least this is our way into
the slip-house."
He led Theo through a passage and across a court into the adjoining
building.
Here a white powder covered everything. Men who hurried by in overalls
and caps were dusty as millers, their hands being coated to the finger
tips with dried clay.
Mr. Marwood stepped forward into the long, cement-floored basement and
pointed to the tracks embedded in it.
"It is on these tracks," he said, "that the cars come in and deposit
their contents in the bins. The bins are of a pretty good size, you
see. They measure about sixteen by thirty-two feet, and each one will
hold eight car-loads of clay. After the different kinds of clay are
unloaded and placed in their respective bins, the proper combination
for specific varieties of porcelain must be weighed out and mixed in
the 'blungers,' as we call the mixing tanks. Now this body formula, or
clay combination, is not entrusted to the ordinary workman. It is
kept secret. Therefore we have on the trucks that carry the clay
between the bins and the blungers what we call charging-scales, which
weigh automatically each ingredient in the compound without betraying
it to the loader.
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