Chinaware is a name given to porcelain (pottery made from kaolin), so called from China being the first country to supply it to Europeans. It is thought that the Chinese produced porcelain from ancient times, but it wasn't until around 500 AD that they perfected the art. Chinaware first came to Europe in the beginning of the 16th century and won immediate popularity for its beauty and novelty.
The European consumers thought it impossible to match the whiteness of Chinaware, until John Frederick of Saxony, an alchemist, discovered a means of producing a porcelain equal in whiteness to the Chinaware. This led to the establishment by the Government of a factory at Meissen which started to produce porcelain rivalling the Chinaware in beauty and quality.
In France also about the middle of the 18th century the celebrated factory at Sevres was set up and soon acquired a great renown. In England a porcfaiain work was established at Chelsea some years prior to 1745; it was made at Stratford-le-Bow about the same time, at Derby as early as 1750, at Worcester in 1751. About 1755 kaolin or porcelain clay was discovered in Cornwall, and this contributed greatly to improve the quality of English porcelain, which began to be largely manufactured in Staffordshire under the auspices of Josiah Spode and Thomas Minton.
Chinaware, when broken, presents a granular surface with a compact, dense, firm, hard, vitreous and durable texture. It is semi-transparent, with a covering of white glaze, clear, smooth, unaffected by all acids except hydroflouric acid, and able to withstand sudden changes of temperature. Research Chinaware
Pottery refers to vessels and other items made of baked clay, also commonly known as 'earthenware', unless the clay used was kaolin in which case the items are known as Porcelain or chinaware (china). Research Pottery
Clay is the name of various earths, which consist of hydrated silicate of aluminium, with small proportions of the silicates of iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium. All the varieties are characterized by being firmly coherent, weighty, compact, and hard when dry, but plastic when moist and comprising very fine-grained materials (less than 0.004 mm in diameter), smooth to touch, not readily diffusible in water, but when mixed not readily subsiding in it. Their tenacity and ductility when moist and their hardness when dry has made them from the earliest times the materials of bricks, tiles, pottery, etc.
Of the chief varieties porcelain-clay, kaolin, or china-clay, a white clay with occasional gray and yellow tones, is the purest. Potter's-clay and pipe-clay, which are similar but less pure, are generally of a yellowish or grayish colour, from the presence of iron. Fire-clay is a very refractory variety, always found lying immediately below the coal; it is used for making fire-bricks, crucibles, etc. Loam is the same substance mixed with sand, oxide of iron, and various other foreign ingredients. The boles, which are of a red or yellow colour from the presence of oxide of iron, are distinguished by their conchoidal fracture. The ochres are similar to the boles, containing only more oxide of iron. Other varieties are f'uller's-earth, Tripoli, and boulder-clay, the last a hard clay of a dark-brown colour, with rounded masses of rock of all sizes embedded in it, the result of glacial action.
The distinctive property of clays as ingredients of the soil is their power of absorbing ammonia and other gases and vapours generated on fertile and manured lands; indeed no soil will long remain fertile unless it has a fair proportion of clay in its composition. The best wheats both in Britain and the European continent are grown on calcareous clays. Research Clay
Feldspar or felspar is a name given to a group of minerals, closely related in crystalline form, and all silicates of alumina with either potash, soda, lime, or, in one case, baryta. They occur in crystals and crystalline masses, vitreous in lustre, and breaking rather easily in two directions at right angles to each other, or nearly so. The colours are usually white or nearly white, flesh- red, bluish, or greenish. The group includes the monoclinic (orthoclastic) species orthoclase or common potash feldspar, and the rare hyalophane or baryta feldspar; also the triclinic species (called in general plagioclase) microcline, like orthoclase a potash feldspar; anorthite or lime feldspar; albite or soda feldspar; also intermediate between the last two species, labradorite, andesine, oligoclase, containing both lime and soda in varying amounts. The feldspars are essential constituents of nearly all crystalline rocks, as granite, gneiss, mica, slate, most kinds of basalt and trachyte, etc. The decomposition of feldspar has yielded a large part of
the clay of the soil, also the mineral kaolin, an essential material in the making of fine pottery. Common feldspar is itself largely used for the same purpose. Research Feldspar
Kaolin is a very pure white clay, ordinarily in the form of an impalpable powder, and used to form the paste of porcelain; Chinaclay; porcelain clay. It is chiefly derived from the decomposition of common feldspar. Research Kaolin
The Republic of Cape Verde is a group of 14 volcanic islands in the Atlanticocean. It has a total area of 4,030 km2. The climate is temperate; warm and dry with summerrain very erratic. The terrain is steep, rugged, rocky and volcanic. Natural resources are salt, basalt rock, pozzolana, limestone, kaolin and fish. The religion is Roman Catholicism fused with indigenous beliefs. The official language is Portuguese and Crioulo, a blend of Portuguese and West African also spoken. Cape Verde was first settled during the 15th century by the Portugese who trasnported in black slaves from West Africa. In 1975 Cape Verde achieved independence from Portugal and planned a union with Guinea-Bissau. That union was abandoned in 1981 and in 1992 a new constitution was adopted in Cape Verde. Research Cape Verde
The Republic of Chad is a country in west Africa. It has a total area of 1,284,000 km2. The climate is tropical in the south and desert in the north. The terrain is broad, arid plains in centre, desert in north, mountains in north-west, lowlands in south. Natural resources are small quantities of crude oil, uranium, natron, kaolin, and fish. The religion is 44% Muslim, 33% Christian, 23% indigenous beliefs, animism. The official language is Arabic with French widely spoken, Sara and Sango are spoken in the south and more than 100 different languages and dialects are also spoken. Chad was first settled by Arabs during the 7th century and known as Kanem. In the 13th century an islamic state was established and the country renamed Bornu. During the 19th century the country was conquered by Sudan and subsequently by the French and in 1916 became part of French EquatorialAfrica. In 1958 Chad achieved autonomy and in 1960 full independence. Research Chad
Cornwall or Kernow (recorded in the Domesday Book as Cornualia) is a maritime county in south west England, forming the south-western extremity of the island, bounded east by Devon, and surrounded on all other sides by the sea; area. The coastline is much broken. Mount's Bay, Falmouth Bay and Harbour, Whitesand Bay, Fowey Harbour, and St Austell Bay are the principal openings on the south coast. The indentations on the north consist of, shallow bays with few or no harbours. Between these two coasts is the promontory of Land's End, terminating in granitecliffs about 60 feet high. Some of the other cliffs exceed 400 ft. in height. At Land's End terminate the hills of the Devonian Range. The part of this range belonging to Cornwall stretches from north-east to south-west, forming the principal watershed of the county. Its highest summit is Brown Willy, 1868 ft. Granite and old red sandstone are the chief rocks.
The rivers are numerous but short. Much of the area, especially in the elevated districts, is barren moorland. The chief wealth of the county was traditionally in its minerals, especially its mines of copper and tin, though the value of both greatly sunk since the 19th century and by the late 20th were of no consequence. Several mines exceeded 350 fathoms in depth. In the BotallackCopperMine, a few miles north of Land's End, the workings were carried below the sea. Besides tin and copper, silver, lead, zinc, iron, manganese, antimony, cobalt, and bismuth are found in comparatively small quantities. There are also valuable deposits of kaolin or china-clay. The fisheries, particularly of pilchard and mackerel, have long been a valuable part of Cornwall's economy.
Cornwall, with the Scilly Isles, seems to have been the Cassiterides or Tin Islands of antiquity. The natives long maintained their independence against the Saxons, and their country was spoken of as West Wales. Their language also long continued to be Celtic. Cornwall gives the titleDuke of Cornwall to the eldest son of the sovereign of Great Britain, and forms a royal duchy, the revenues of which belong to the Prince of Wales for the time being. The dukedom was created for the Black Prince in 1337.
Abbreviations
Research Chinaware
