Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/305

Rh probably the most noteworthy are a bust of Cleopatra and a vase with modeled figures of base-ball players.

The first attempts in the manufacture of "Belleek" egg-shell china were made by Mr. Brewer in 1882, in conjunction with Mr. William Bromley, Jr., but these early trials were not entirely satisfactory. Encouraged by partial success, however, Mr. Brewer induced Bromley to send for his father, William Bromley, and his brother, John Bromley, who, with two or three other hands, came over in the following year from the Belleek factory in Ireland. Mr. William H. Goss, of Stoke-on-Trent, invented this body some thirty years ago, at which time the elder Bromley was acting as his manager. Messrs. David McBirney and Robert Williams Armstrong were then attempting to make first-class ceramic goods at their recently established manufactory in the village of Belleek, county of Fermanagh, Ireland. Mr. Armstrong induced Bromley to take a number of Mr. Goss's best workmen to Ireland and introduce the egg-shell porcelain there. The ware produced at that factory has since become world-famous, being characterized by extreme lightness of body and a beautiful, lustrous glaze. The ware now manufactured by the Ott and Brewer Company is made entirely from American materials, and is a vast improvement over the body and glaze first introduced by the Bromleys eight years ago. In the rich iridescence of the nacreous glaze it is fully equal to the original Belleek; in delicacy of coloring and lightness of weight it is even superior. A dozen cups and saucers, making twenty-four distinct pieces of the ordinary size, almost as thin as paper, weigh just one pound avoirdupois, or an average of only two thirds of an ounce each. A large variety of forms of this porcelain are produced, in both ornamental and useful designs. The larger vases are usually simple in outline and of the same comparative lightness as those of smaller size. They often possess pierced necks, feet, and handles, and are elegantly decorated in enamels, gold relief, and chasing.

A triumph of the potter's skill is a Belleek ostrich-egg bonbon-box, in two segments, which is exquisitely perforated or honeycombed over its entire surface. We can not here reproduce more than one or two examples of these beautiful fabrics. One is a