Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/321

Rh be complete without a brief review of the manufacture of ornamental tiles and architectural terra-cotta, which, although extending over only about two decades, furnishes an instance of marvelously rapid development.

As early as 1832, or thereabout, plain fire-brick and tile were made by the American China Manufactory in Philadelphia, then operated by Messrs. Tucker & Hemphill. They advertised these products as being "of a superior quality, manufactured in part from the materials of which the china is composed. These have been proved, by competent judges, to be fully equal to the best Stourbridge brick," which have been celebrated for their excellence for nearly a century and a half. The fire-clays of the Stourbridge district have been used for upward of three hundred years by British manufacturers.

The European exhibits of fancy wall and floor tiles at the Philadelphia Exhibition awakened the American ceramists to a full realization of their insignificance in this broad field, and the majority of ornamental tile works in this country have been established since that great industrial event. With the exception of roofing tiles, Americans made there no exhibit of consequence in this department of the fictile art. As early as 1871 or 1872, however, Messrs. Hyzer & Lewellen, of Philadelphia, had been experimenting in geometrical tiling, and I have before me some interesting examples of these early attempts. Their first experiments were directed to the manufacture of encaustic tiles of geometrical shapes—square, diamond, and triangular—with natural and artificially colored American clays, mainly buff, red, and black, the designs being inlaid to the depth of about a quarter of an inch. While these efforts proved partially successful, the wet clay method employed at that time was unsatisfactory, because the shrinkage was found to be irregular and the pieces came from the kiln of different thicknesses. The next experiments were made by the damp-dust process, which has been employed ever since. The accompanying illustration will show two forms of