the Christian era, and then, in Egypt apparently,
the improvement was introduced of lengthening the spindle which
carries the throwing-wheel and mounting on it near the base a much
larger disk which the potter could rotate with his foot, and so have
both hands free for the manipulation of the clay (fig. 2). No further
advance seems to have been made before the 17th century, when the
wheel was spun by means of a cord working over a pulley; and though a
steam-driven wheel was introduced in the middle of the 19th century,
this form remains the best for the production of fine pottery.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Potter moulding a vessel on the wheel (from a
painting in a tomb at Thebes about 1800 B.C.). Compare the wheel on
the left in fig. 5.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Potter's wheel of the time of the Ptolemies,
moved by the foot (from a wall-relief at Philae). Compare fig. 5, the
wheel on the right.]

A prevalent misconception with regard to the potter's wheel needs
correction. For anything beyond very simple shapes it is impossible to
carry the work to completion on the wheel at one operation as is
generally imagined. All that the potter can do while the clay is soft
enough to "throw" on the wheel is to get a rough shape of even
thickness. This operation completed, the piece is removed from the
wheel and set aside to dry. When it is about leather-hard, it may be
re-centred carefully on the wheel (the old practice), or placed in a
horizontal lathe (since 16th century) and turned down to the exact
shape and polished to an even, smooth surface. The Greek vase-makers
were already adepts in what is often reckoned a modern, detestable
practice. Many Greek vases have obviously been "thrown" in separate
sections, and when these had contracted and hardened sufficiently they
were luted together with slip, and the final vase-shape was smoothed
and turned down on the wheel, and even polished to as fine a degree of
mechanical finish as the modern potter ever attains. So too with the
Chinese; many of their forms have been made in two or three portions,
subsequently joined together and finished on the outside as one piece.
Indeed it is remarkable how the Greeks and Chinese had discovered for
themselves many devices of this kind which are generally held up to
opprobrium as the debased methods of a mechanical age. Always it
should be borne in mind that the shaping of