XVIII.—The Glenboig Fireclay

Abstract

According to Percy's definition, “clays are termed fireclays or refractory clays when they resist exposure to a high temperature without melting or becoming in a sensible degree soft and pasty.” The refractoriness of fireclay is due to its low proportions of fluxes. The best known British fireclays occur beneath the coal seams of the coal measures, and are therefore known as “under-clays” or “seat-clays.” The explanation of their paucity of fluxes usually offered is that the alkalies have been withdrawn as food by the vegetation which formed the coal. Thus Professor Tarr remarks that fireclays “are particularly abundant in the Carboniferous rocks associated with coal beds, the plants having been instrumental in the withdrawal of the alkalies.” This view has been widely accepted, and the death of the successive coal forests has been attributed to the exhaustion of the plant foods in the underlying soils. Caution is, however, necessary in the application of this theory; for plants can only withdraw soluble alkalies from the soil, and the alkalies are usually present in the form of silicates, which decompose slowly. Hence the total removal of alkalies from a soil by vegetation would be a very lengthy process. Moreover, alkalies are not the only, or indeed the most common of fluxes, for iron is usually the most potent. Further, some good fireclays are not associated with coal seams, while well-washed river muds may be poorer in alkali than an underclay, the alkalies having been washed out of the material. Thus the river muds from the Rhine near Bonn, analysed by Bischoff, contain only ·89 per cent. of potash and ·39 per cent. of soda; or after deducting the water and organic material the percentages of potash and soda are 1·02 and 0·45 respectively. Another analysis by Bischoff of river mud from the Rhine collected above Lake Constance contained potash ·55 per cent. and soda ·54 per cent., or after deducting the water and carbonates the percentage of these two constituents only rose to ·91 per cent. of potash and ·90 per cent. of soda.