KAOLIN

The Chinese name for porcelain clay. A large tract of this useful substance occurs near St. Austle in Cornwall, whence our potteries and porcelain manufactories are copiously supplied. Its e ential component parts are silica and alumina; the former usually preponderates. The kaolin of Cornwall, and probably of other countries, is derived from the decomposition of the felspar of granitic rocks. K AR A. A Tartar word, signifying black, used in many of the Eastern. languages as a prefix to geographical names; as Karamania, the country cf the black people. It has also been employed in the same capacity to signify "tributary; " as kara kalpacks, tributary kalpacks. KARMATHIANS, or [s. 638]