Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/425



Neither of these specimens can properly be called true porcelain. As for the former, were it not baked in a porcelain oven and did it not possess a thoroughly fused porcelain glaze, its grey fracture and lack of transparency would relegate it to the rank of fine stone-ware. It is manufactured entirely from clay found near a village called Nagami. The latter specimen is composed of equal parts of three clays (Okubo-tsuchi, Shira-shari-tsuchi, and Kabuto-tsuchi), all found near the village of Hongo. It represents the better kind of Wakamatsu-yaki, having a pure white fracture, but little transparency even at the edges. The Aizu potters, in fact, experienced difficulty in obtaining a temperature sufficiently high to produce transparent ware. Their raw material, pronounced by experts to be an imperfectly hardened porcelain stone and placed in the same category with the Arita mineral, proved somewhat refractory. But of late they have completely overcome these difficulties. They now succeed in producing translucid porcelain of fine quality and almost egg-shell thinness. The decoration, confined to blue under the glaze, is brilliant in colour, and carefully executed. The industry gives occupation to about a thousand persons. The name of an expert Kishi Denzo, is associated with the progress of recent improvements.

According to tradition, pottery was produced in the province of Iwaki (Fukushima Prefecture) as