Still further on a girl of eighteen was daintily dabbing the smooth faces of her tiles with several different colors, transform ing some into chalcedony, others into onyx, both Californian and Mexican, marble and granite, and other handsome stone effects. Only they did not look like these things just then. This was the glazing room, and the milk-pans contained liquid glass into which different chemicals had been stirred to produce the variety of colors required. The girls worked rapidly, and as fast as the tiles were dipped they were borne in the direction of the furnaces, where they were submitted to the process known as " firing." This is almost the last stage in the manufacture of a tile, though one of the most delicate, and in some respects the least understood. The tiles are placed in large porous earthen ves sels, called setters among the potters who make pots and cups. The setter is filled with tiles and a lid placed on it. Then a piece of common red Jersey clay two feet long is used to her metically seal the setters. The setters are then placed in the kiln, one on top of another, from the floor to the ceiling. The door of the kiln is then closed and the fires are started. Care must be taken to lay the tiles perfectly level in the setters, and also to make a similar disposition of the setters in the kiln. A perfect disposition of the " glost " on the face of the tile can only be secured thus : Should a tile tip the slightest portion of a degree the lower edge will, after " firing," be found to be much darker than the upper edge, which will be very light. This is due to the law of nature which causes the liquid glaze to seek its level. If one will take the trouble to examine a handsome tile panel, say of a pastoral scene, it will be observed that the sheep in the foreground, standing out almost white, are in bas-relief, while those dark ones on the brow of the dis tant hill are intaglio. The dark shades surrounding the young shepherd—himself almost pure white—are simply slight con cavities into which the glaze, liquefied by the heat, has flowed. In a word, no artist is required to produce the exquisite shad ing so often met with in the higher class of tiles—you lay on the colors, the fire does the rest.
From the kiln the product is ready to go to the packing room, where all imperfect pieces are rejected, and the different styles are assorted and packed in barrels ready for shipping.
The manufacture of tiles in this country was an unknown industry thirty years ago. To-day nine-tenths of the tiles used in America are made in Trenton and Cincinnati. The art of making tile 24 to 3o inches long and 6 to 15 inches wide in one solid piece, is a New Jersey discovery which foreign makers cannot imitate. The advantage of this is apparent in inspect ing the panels, one made in a solid piece and the other in two or three sections. The glaze on the solid panel will be found all of one shade ; but let the maker of the three-section panel be never so careful, he will never succeed in producing an exact similarity of shades on the three pieces. The effect of this is less harmonious than the single piece. When Europe fur nished all the tiles used in this country, Americans paid $1,250 per thousand feet for the plainest tile, and much larger prices for the artistic panels. Now $250 to $350 is the price for the
plain product, while artistic patterns are proportionately low.
It may be a matter of interest to readers to know that one of the most valuable discoveries ever patented for making patent tiles is the property of a bright young woman, Miss Frye, a school teacher, who will soon be able to desert the school-room and live on the royalty of her patent. Just what this patent is the writer is not at liberty to tell, but like every thing truly feminine, it is lovely and simple. It is something every male potter has been trying to discover for many years —a lost art in fact—and every blessed man who has seen it has, man-like, exclaimed : "What a blankety idiot I was not to have thought of it." You see, the only thing to do was to think of it; the balance was easy enough. However, nobody ever thought of it till Miss Frye had the patent safe in her pocket, and along with it a handsome fortune in prospect and a com petency for the present. Like all really studious and thinking women, Miss Frye is modest to a degree, and reticent as to herself and her discovery.
There is also a fortune awaiting the man who will rediscover the lost art of producing the green, blue and red of the ancients from copper ; the first two colors can be got easily enough, but the last is delusive. Will the " man" who finds this be a "woman" also ? Various tile machines have been designed for the manufac ture of tiles from dust or semi-dry clay, but we are unable here to reproduce more than one. Fig. 206 shows a screw press, made by Mr. Peter Wilkes, of Trenton, N. J., for the Trent Tile Company, and will give an excellent idea of the principle on which the majority of such machines' are operated. This forms tiles six inches to twelve inches square, the die being placed between the " push-up " and " plunger." It can also be used for making plates, oval dishes, and other ware.
In France great attention is at present paid to the manufac ture of glazed or enameled tiles (tuiles vernissees ou encaus tiques). The guiding points in glazing the tiles are either a white coating with the subsequent use of a colorless glaze, or a colored coating with a subsequent coat of a colored glaze. In the first case the white coating is simply a layer of white or refractory clay, and the colorless glaze is either applied to the crude but perfectly dry product, which requires only one burn ing, or upon the biscuit, which requires two burnings. In the second case the preparation of the colored coatings is effected in the same manner as that of the colored masses, by mixing the coloring oxides previously triturated, melted and fritted to gether with an antiplastic substance, such as quartz, sand or feldspar, with white clay ; the application is effected the same as colorless coatings.
If the glaze is laid upon a coating it will always present a brilliant and beautiful app'esrance, free from cracks, while if directly applied to the mass it will always have a dull look. The latter method, to be sure, is cheaper, and favored by the action of a hot sun, is chiefly employed in Southern France, while the damp and dull northern part allows only of glazing upon biscuit.