Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/261

 openings. The same general form of kiln is used in Hizen and Owari, with one important difference, that the heat circulates through the vaults by holes cut in the bottom of each. According to the Kyōtō keramists, experience shows that caloric impinging laterally is better suited for the baking of porcelain and pottery than caloric ascending vertically. The fuel used is pine faggots, and the furnace is kept burning for about three days. On the latter point it is not possible to speak with precision. There is no fixed rule. Through a little window in each vault the workmen watch the progress of the baking, or with an iron tongs draw out and examine experimental specimens. At the Awata kiln, however, the condition of the ware is judged by the colour of the flame. Pieces placed in the lower tiers, and therefore exposed to the highest temperature, are enclosed in seggars, and in every case a powdered stone (called Hinoka-seki) obtained from Otagi, in Yamashiro, is employed to prevent adhesion to the floor of the oven or the base of the seggars. This stoving is final, in the case of specimens decorated only with blue under the glaze. Where enamels or glazes à demi feu are employed, they are subsequently fixed at a lower temperature in little household kilns (called Kin-gama).

Associated with the construction of kilns is the name of an expert, Ogawa Kyuemon, a native of Wakasugi, in the province of Kaga, who became known for his skill in this matter during the Bunsei era (1818–1829). There is no information with respect to the improvements introduced by him, but in 1839 employed to construct a kiln at Hinokuchi, in Ōsaka; and in 1847 he was summoned, for the same purpose, to Shikaseyama, in Yamashiro, by Prince Ichijo. The latter was so pleased with Ogawa's work that he bestowed on him a pension in perpetuity. In the same year Ogawa directed the building of a kiln at Otokoyama, in Kiushū, and so late as 1877 he performed a similar office in Ishikawa Prefecture. His son, Tetsu-no-suke, and his grandson U-no-suke (pseudonym Ojuen Bunsai), now manufacture faience at Gojō in Kyōtō.