This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1810. Excerpt: ... CHAP. IX. I attempt to mould earthen ware, and succeed--Description of my mode of baking--Begin to make a boat--After it is finished, am unable to get it down to the watei--Serious reflections--My ink and biscuit exhausted, and clothes in a bad state--Contrive to make a dress of skins. It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward ways I took to raise this paste, what odd mis-shapen ugly things I made, how many of them fell in, and how many fell out, the clay not being stiff enough to bear its own weight; how many cracked by the overviolent heat of the sun, being set out too hastily; and how many fell to pieces with only removing, as well before as after they were dried; and, in a word, how, after having laboured hard to find the clay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I could not make above two large earthen ugly things, I cannot call them jars, in about two months labour. However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them very gently up, and set them down again in two great wicker-baskets, which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break; and, as between the pot and the basket there was a little room to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw; and these two pots being to stand always dry, I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal when the corn was bruised. Though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots, yet I made several smaller things with better success; such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any thing my hand turned to; and the heat of the sun baked them strangely hard. But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen pot to hold what was liquid, and bear the fire, which none of t...