Indians learned these things, the Chinese and the people of ancient Egypt.
Unless these vessels of burned clay were broken by accident, they would last as long as stone. So in caves and tombs, the oldest kinds of pottery have been found in many parts of the world. Some of them are beautiful in shape, in color and in ornamentation, and by studying them we can learn a great deal about the lives and the ideas of peoples who had no written language. Many people think we cannot make any better or more beautiful pottery today than was made hundreds and thousands of years ago. But we can make it more easily and cheaply by machinery, and in many more varieties and shapes, so that everybody can have quantities of it.
In old, old times people mixed the clay and water with their hands and feet. You would have liked that. Mud is so nice and cool and "squshy" between the fingers and toes. But it was rather slow work. The first machine used in pottery ma.king of today is a kind of big coffee mill for grinding the clay to powder. It is called a pug-mill. Pug is from "pucker, " a German, or perhaps Dutch word that means to beat, to pound. Very likely the Dutch people invented the pug-mill, for Dutch sailors brought the first "chinaware" from China itself to Europe, and then learned how to make the delicate white ware themselves. But when they had made it they called it porcelain, from the Portuguese name for a shell, "porcellana." Thin white "china" is much like a shell.
Now the Dutch had wind-mills that did the hard work of pumping water, sawing wood and grinding grain. So it was only natural that these clever people should give the wind-mills a new task of grinding kaolin, or white clay for making porcelain. The pug-mill was just a wooden vat, fed from above by a hopper filled with clay. It had an upright shaft in the middle set with rows of strong blunt knives, to cut and beat and pound the clay lumps to powder. If your mother will let you, grind up some lumps of dry kindergarten clay in the coffee mill. It won’t hurt the mill, if you wash it afterwards. The powdered clay will fall into the cup or little wooden drawer at the bottom. The pug-mill in pottery works holds a ton or so of clay and is operated by steam with great wheels and flying belts and inside are broad blunt knives that turn on a shaft and chop and beat and grind. It works all the time and fills enormous bins with velvety clay flour, ready to make mud pies.
