pottery by "pressing"
cakes of clay into moulds is much older than the potter's wheel, and
has always been the method of making shapes other than those in the
round. The modern method of "casting" pottery by pouring slip, a fluid
mixture of clay and water, into absorbent moulds seems to have
originated in England about the middle of the 18th century; and this
too is a genuine potter's method which does not merit the disapproval
with which it has been generally regarded by writers on the potter's
art.

In all ages the work of the "thrower" or "presser" has been largely
supplemented by the modeller, who alters the shape, and applies to it
handles, spouts or modelled accessories at will.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Early Greek pottery-kiln, about 700-600 B.C.
(from a painted votive tablet found at Corinth, now in the Louvre).
The section shows the probable construction of the kiln.]

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Roman kiln found at Castor. The low arch is
for the insertion of the fuel; the pots rested on the perforated
floor, made of clay slabs; the top of the kiln is missing,--it was
probably a dome.]

_Firing._--The firing of pottery has become in modern times such a
specialized branch of the manufacture that the student can only be
referred here to the technological works mentioned in the bibliography
at the end of this article. It is, however, necessary that we should
briefly describe the earlier forms of potters' kilns used by the
nations whose pottery counts among the treasures of the collector and
the antiquary. Here again we now know that the primitive types of kiln
used by the potters of ancient Egypt or Greece have not vanished from
the earth; it is only in the civilized countries of the modern world
that they have been replaced by improved and perfected devices. The
potters of the North-West Provinces of India use to-day a kiln
practically identical with that depicted in severest silhouette on the
rock-tombs of Thebes; and the skilful Japanese remain content with a
kiln very similar to the one shown in fig. 3. This Greek type of kiln
was improved and enlarged by the Romans, and its use seems to have
been introduced wherever pottery was made under their sway, for
remains of Roman kilns have been found in many countries (see fig. 4).
With the end of Roman dominance we have ample evidence that their
technical methods fell into disuse, and the nor