and make their
porcelain anywhere?" asked Will.

"Because the Chinese jealously kept all their clay to themselves,"
answered Uncle Jack.

"How did that man come to discover where the clay was, and if it was of
the right kind?" asked Al.

"By a strange chance. According to the fashion of the time, men
powdered their hair, using wheat flour for that purpose. One day a
neighbor of the chemist, in traveling an unfrequented part of the
country, observed on his horse's hoofs some white sticky clay, and it
occurred to him that this white clay, dried and powdered, would make an
excellent and cheap substitute for wheat flour as a hair powder. So he
carried a little home with him, and some of it finally reached
Boettcher. The chemist found it extremely heavy, and, fearing the
presence of some metal hurtful to the skin, he tested the clay in his
laboratory. To his surprise and joy this white hair-powder proved
itself possessed of the same qualities as the veritable Chinese
_kaolin_, as their clay is called."

[Illustration: MARK OF DRESDEN CHINA.]

[Illustration: MARK OF WORCESTER PORCELAIN.]

"Why, that sounds like a story," said Matie.

"Here now," said Uncle Jack, "is a vase; that might carry the mind back
thousands of years, to the time when bodies were burned instead of
buried, and the ashes kept in just such urns as this."

"Is that vase thousands of years old?" asked Matie.

"No, dear; this vase is only modeled after the ancient cinerary urns,
as they were called, and was made a year or two ago by Ipsen, of
Copenhagen."

"That isn't porcelain, is it, uncle?" asked Al.

"No, this is 'terra cotta,' which is Italian for 'earth cooked.' Those
beautiful lines of color and gilding are painted on the surface."

"Did you ever see any real antique vases, uncle?" asked Willie.

"Why, certainly. There are some in the Cesnola collection at our
Metropolitan Museum of Art in Fourteenth street that are known to have
been made 1,400 years before the Christian era. They were found on the
island of Cyprus, in the Mediterranean Sea, by General Di Cesnola, who
dug up a great many articles,--statues, ornaments of gold, silver and
bronze, beautiful glass bottles, and many domestic utensils. I saw a
cullender made of such earthenware as we have in the kitchen at this
day; it had been used as a milk-strainer, and particles of dried milk
were still clinging to its sides, after lying buried more than three
thousand years."

"Oh, w