Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/386

 clay gives green ware. A clay called Mi-keu (literally, “closed mouth” or “secret opening”) produces light red pottery, and a mixture of “pear-skin” clay with white sand gives pottery the colour of a light shade of Indian ink. The spirit of the mountain is said to create several other varieties of colour when its clays are baked. A clay found at the hill T'wan-shan produces pottery with white spots like pearls; and the same clay mixed with azure-blue and stone-yellow clays give a rust colour of dark or light shade. White clay is obtained principally from a hill called Pai-shishan (white-stone hill), in Chiang-yin. An ancient writer says that in these hills there are caves capable of holding thirty or forty persons, and that from their roofs hang stalactites of various colours. In these caves clays of fine quality are found. The position of the caves changes, however, from time to time, according to the will of the spirit of the mountain. Doubtless if excavation sufficiently deep—two or three hundred feet—were made, good clay would be found everywhere.