Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/721

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WILLIAN COOKWORTHY
605

discovered in Virginia, and sent a Quaker to procure some for him. Somewhere about 1748 he himself discovered it in Cornwall. He wrote: "I first discovered it in the parish of Germo, in a hill called Tregonnin Hill." After a long description of the properties of the clay and his experiments upon it, he says: "I have lately discovered that in the neighbourhood of the parish of S. Stephen's, in Cornwall, there are immense quantities both of the Petunse stone and the Kaulin, and which I believe may be more conveniently and advantageously wrought than those of Tregonnin Hill, as by experiments I have made on them they produce a much whiter body, and do not shrink so much in baking, nor take stains so readily from the fire. S. Stephen's lies between Truro, S. Austell and S. Columb; and the parish of Dennis, the next to S. Stephen's, I believe, hath both the ingredients in plenty in it."

The same materials were afterwards found at Boconnoc, the seat of the Hon. Thomas Pitt, afterwards created Lord Camelford. This discovery led to an acquaintance with Thomas Pitt, and together they obtained a patent in 1768 and started the Plymouth China Factory, that brought the manufacture of porcelain to great perfection; but for some reason did not yield profit to the patentees.

In precisely the same year kaolin was discovered at St. Yrïeix, near Limoges. The wife of a surgeon there had used it for the purpose of bleaching linen, when her husband, suspecting its real value, took it to Bordeaux, and on trial it was found to be the very thing needed as a base to real hard porcelain. The manufactory of Sèvres which had used imported Chinese clay, now employed that of St. Yrïeix; and the Limoges manufacture of porcelain was then started. After six years' trial, outlay, and discouragement,