the beautiful. But religion, the highest attainment of knowledge, will do more. It will enable you to meet, and conquer every temptation. It will strengthen you to encounter sickness and sorrow and death with composure. Therefore with all your gettings, treasure up this species of understanding, to know God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent,

I know well what are the feelings of parents, and how, dearer than the apple of their eye, you are to them. May you be to them all that they wish. May you piously rock the cradle of their declining age. The angel of the covenant bless you; and when your fathers and mothers have joined the forgotten multitudes of former ages, may you, the coming generation, bless their memory, and that of your instructers, by filling their vacant places with usefulness and dignity.

Thoughts respecting the establishment of a Porcelain Manufactory at Cincinnati.

THIS city has been ascertained to be not only healthy, but very healthy; as much so, it is confidently believed, as any other in our union. It is geographically central to the great and fertile valley of the Ohio-being nearly equi-distant from Pittsburgh, and the mouth of the Ohio; and the middle range of the Alleghanies, and Lake Erie. It is equally central to the population of the whole western country; and naturally the market at present for more than a million of people, to say nothing of the future.-Not only has its unexampled increase created jealousy and doubt abroad, but has raised apprehensions in the minds of capitalists and builders at home, whether its advance was a healthy and natural one, and whether it was not outgrowing its resources and its relative proportion to the country. These apprehensions, as they are renewed, are as constantly quieted, by the demonstrations of experience, that the new houses are generally engaged, before they are completed; and that the boarding houses are constantly filled with families, who are waiting for houses to be finished for their occupancy. We surely have none of the sensitiveness of a speculator or a landlord. But, as we see new buildings, churches and establishments continually rising, as we mark the masses of people, which a full market, or a spectacle, or an exciting town meeting assembles, we have often internally enquired, where were the means of subsistence and pursuit of this constantly accumulating mass; accustomed, as we have been to see great towns arise only on the sea shore, or in positions accessible to sea navigation? We have paused to enquire, how we could erect so many handsome buildings and churches, and construct so many public works with a capital, which in other places would be deemed so little commensurate with such results. It seems obvious to us, that in order to hold out sufficient motives, to detain the many strangers, who are continually flocking here, to reconnoitre this place, with a view to its capabilities, as a domicile, we must institute some manufacturing establishment, more general in its character, and more universal in its requirement by consumers, than any that yet exists among us. Whoever would be instrumental in

establishing such manufactures, healthful, and yielding moderate, but certain profits, extensive in demand, and of perpetual requirement, and requi ring the co-operation, and eliciting the ingenuity, and arousing and fostering the taste of great numbers of people, would be a benefactor to the city, as long as the Ohio shall roll by its borders.

Since our city is an internal mart, and cannot spread the sails of its ships on the sea, let us look to enduring, indispensable and important manufactures. If our upper sister, Pittsburgh, is blackened to external gloom by the fumes of mineral coal, she has had the wisdom to apply herself to extensive and vital branches of manufactures, which the people must, and will buy; manufactures, which depend on no caprice of fashion, changes of taste, fluctuations of trade, or alternations of even peace and war. If we would not outgrow our resources, we must imitate Pittsburgh. We have not, it is true, her immediate contiguity to mineral coal. But, without wishing to institute a disparaging comparison, we know of no oth er advantage, which she possesses beyond us; and in our central position, and the cheapness and abundance of our market, we have indisputable advantages; not to mention many others, which it would be obvious to urge. The vast number of patented inventions, and the whimsical variety of attempted improvements in machinery, and projects for performing new ope rations by it, prove, that we have a great amount of mechanical ingenuity Every one is aware of the great numbers and inventiveness among us. of ingenious foreigners, conversant in the most complicated, difficult and occult manufactures and preparations of the old world, which our city brings up. When the Ohio and Erie canal, traversing inexhaustible beds of mineral coal, shall be completed, the freight of that article here will be an element so trifling, to deduct from our peculiar physical and moral capacities for manufactures, as to be unworthy of entering into the calculation. Whoever understands the true and permanent interests of this city, must not only wish to see, but lend a hand to the establishment of some great and staple manufacture; such as will require many hands and much taste; and such as the population of the Ohio and Mississippi valley will continue to call for to the end of time, and to a great amount; and such as can be more conveniently fabricated, and more easily distributed from this point, than any other in this valley. We do not often obtrude thoughts upon such subjects upon the public; and have therefore some of the claims upon candor and attention, which are allowed to a virgin speaker on the floor. We are sure of one other claim; that derived from a sincere desire to be, in our way and according to our means, instrumental in promoting the prosperity and welfare of the city.

We say then, that in our view, there is no place in America, perhaps none in the world, that so imperiously calls for an establishment on a large scale of the manufacture of the two kinds of earthen ware, known among us by the name Liverpool and China ware-more properly called Porce lain.

It is hardly necessary to premise, that this is a bulky and heavy article that from its fragility of texture, it is more exposed to injury, and the deduction of breakage, than any other, glass only excepted. An immense and constantly increasing amount is demanded; and, in some of its forms and varieties, in every domestic establishment, from the cabin to the man, Vol. III-No. 10.

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sion; and from the nature of things, it is a fabric, which we have no reason to think, will ever be superseded. Just as long as man will require food presented him in circumstances, which mark, that he is no longer a savage, so long the necessity for this great article of supply will exist. All these circumstances on their face establish the claims of this species of fabric to importance, utility and perpetuity at least parallel with any other, that can be named.

Our coarser wares of this sort, we believe, are almost entirely brought us from Liverpool. The immense manufacture and vending of this article over the world, China only excepted, is known to be one of the great national resources of England; one of those mines of internal industry, by which this small island has placed herself in a position to tax the resources, and manage the wealth of the civilized world. Our finer wares of this sort are brought us from the other extremity of the globefrom China; and before they reach us, have another long and expensive transportation. They come to us with all the duties, package, drayage, insurance, commission, brokerage, cartage, and steam boat re-shipment upon them. It is not in our line to state the amount of all this ten times reduplicated enhancement of the price. But in the case of China ware, we should suppose it more than double the original price of the article.

In relation to the expediency of establishing such a manufacture here, it seems to us, that the only questions to be settled are these: have we an ample supply of earths for the coarser and the finer sorts? Could we procure artisans fully competent to executing the fabrics in perfection? Would the comparative cheapness of labor in the countries, whence we import them, enable the manufacturers there to send them to us, burdened with all the necessary charges, as cheap, as we could afford them, when -manufactured on the spot?

We premise a few words in regard to the first point, touching the earthy matters necessary to the fabric. There are a great many varieties of this kind of ware, from the finest semi-transparent of China, and the dazzling lustre of Seves, to the common ware imported from Liverpool. All these varieties require different combinations of earths, of which fine clay is the basis. We shall only speak of the finest China ware, and the still more beautiful fabric of Seves; as it is believed, that the materials of the latter are very similar to those of the semi-transparent porcelain of China.

That is well known to be composed of a mixture of two kinds of earth, or rather a kind of friable stone, and an earth. The one is called kaolin, and the other petunsee. They are both white in color--and the basis of one is clay, and the other silex, or flint. The feldspar stone, which is common on the Alleghanies, and in the countries of the lead mines, and about the lakes, is found to consist of about the same proportions of earthy matter, as the porcelain, and would undoubtedly answer for that fabric. Porcelain clay of the finest quality contains the following components of 100 parts. Silex 55; alumine or pure clay 27; oxyd of iron

of one part; water 14; lime 2. Both these earths are found in quarries near King-te-ching. The petunsee is exceedingly white, fine, soft and greasy to the touch. The kaolin is not found in the same abundance, but is not unlike the other earth in its external properties. It has been said, that the Chinese keep a constant supply dug up, to receive the

influence of frost, rain, and the chemical changes of time, one hundred
years in advance of the use; so that the manufacturers use that earth,
which was dug one hundred years before; and themselves supply the earth
and
used, by digging an equal quantity, which will be used one hundred years
processes;
to come. But the Saxons and the French adopt no such
the latter have far transcended their masters in the beauty of their fabric.
We shall say nothing about the preparing, moulding, baking, painting,
varnishing, gilding, and the like. These constitute, as every one under-
stands, a very complicated series of processes, which, though delicate,
and requiring art, taste and experience, are now well known to be no more
mysteries, than those of any other complicated process. They are all
possessed, in different degrees, by thousands of artificers in all countries
where this fabric is made.

It has been made in China from time immemorial. The first authentic The annals, in relation to it, date about the fifth century of our era. Chinese used to make the article more beautiful in former times. This, instead of being attributed to their being retrograde in skill, as has been idly supposed, is clearly owing to the greater demand, since the English and Americans have opened such an extensive trade with them in the article. The demand has increased beyond the supply; and they have yielded to the consequent temptation to fabricate a more easily wrought and inferior article.

The finest and the greatest quantity is fabricated in King-te-Ching; though a considerable amount is made in the province of Quang-tong, or, as we call it, Canton; and in Fokien. The inferiority of the latter to the former is, probably, owing to the inferiority of the materials.

Porcelain is, also, made in Japan, in Vienna, in Berlin, and a very beautiful kind in Dresden. We doubt not, most of our readers are familiar with the touching and beautiful story of Miss Edgeworth, turning upon a premium offered by the king of Prussia for the handsomest design of painting for a particular piece of porcelain-and iniquitously gained by a Jew from the real designer, a poor and beautiful girl.

In Italy there are manufactures of porcelain at Naples and Florence, It was wrought at many places in France. But, before the time of Reamur, of a kind very inferior to that of Dresden, which had been carried to the next degree of perfection to that of the Chinese. Reamur discovered in France earths so like the kaolin and petunsee of China, as to make equally beautiful ware. The article which there answers for kaolin, is a white argillaceous earth, filled with mica-and the petunsee is a hard quartzose stone. Reamur made many discoveries, touching the fusibility, and the relative proportions requisite for hardness, fineness and semi-transparency. Montigny, and especially Macquer, carried these improvements still farther-and the royal establishment of Seve, or Seves, on the road from Paris to Versailles, became, as it were, a national school-in which, for beauty, brilliance, taste in painting, and elegance of the finish, nothing in the world can compare with the article there wrought. We have had an opportunity to examine complete services of this ware, and were sensible that no description would give any adequate idea of its beauty. It must be seen to be valued aright. This splendid fabric is now dispatched to orders, from the opulent and tasteful, in all countries. The

establishment gives employment to a vast number of hands, and in France labor is comparatively high. The designs for painting and enamelling operate more efficaciously, than a thousand inert academies, with their premiums, to elicit taste, to produce emulation in invention-and in the noblest walk, and to the highest ends to cultivate the fine arts. France derives more real glory from the Seves manufactory, than from all her triumphal arches, and all her victories purchased by blood and tears. It is a source of national wealth and emulation in the walk of the fine arts. What triumph of art can be prouder, than to convert masses of earth into the most beautiful fabric, that the imagination can picture-forming the basis of the most splendid colorings that art can prepare? Whoever orders the article, can sketch the landscape of his own domicile, paint his own river, brooks, grounds, cattle, horses and dogs, and have them returned to him, wrought in brilliance to vie with Cinderilla's coach; and in beauty and fidelity of painting, which marks the improvement of modern times, and, more than all, of the French in this walk.

The next question to be settled is, have we in this place the materials for this fabric, so as to be easily and cheaply accessible? This immense valley is well known to be alluvial, of secondary formation, as geologists say, every where bounded by primitive formation; and, of course, containing all the gradations and combinations of transition-formation, in all intermediate mixtures from the one to the other. We might expect, a priori, in such a region, what we find to be the fact, every variety of alumipous and siliceous earth-clays of all colors, and the most impalpable fineness. Feldspar exists, as we have seen, in a thousand places. Glass manufacturers find, in a great number of places, the finest siliceous earths for their purposes, as our beautiful specimens of cut glass testify. From personal examination, we believe, that kaolin exists in the hills immediately contiguous to our city; and we question not, that the requisite earths might be found on proper examination, between the Miamies, a region so abundant in all forms and combinations of aluminous earths.

But we have just risen from examining a specimen of the beautiful earth found in a bank in the county of Cape Girardeau, and in a point, we understand, directly accessible by steamboats. The quantity is stated to be inexhaustible; and a learned chemist, Mr. Troost, has, we are told, pronounced it the happiest combination of the earths necessary to the most beautiful species of porcelain. Such are our own impressions; and we once pursued these investigations long and laboriously. The question, as to our having the materials of the finest quality, of the greatest abundance, and easily, and cheaply accessible, it seems to us, may be unhesitatingly settled in the affirmative,

We have but one more question of which to dispose. Can we afford to manufacture the article here as cheap as we can import it from China, France and England? The duties on the fabric are 20 per cent. ad valorem. The voyage from China is one of the most distant and extensive, that American ships encounter. The whole accumulated expenses of China Porcelain bring it to us in this city at more than 100 per cent. advance upon the original cost. In conversing with a very respectable importer of the article, which we call Liverpool, or printed ware, in this city, we find, that a medial cost of many invoices, and containing all the kinds