This is a substitute for Barnard which has long been used by potters as a source of iron in dark firing glazes. It offers price advantages over using iron oxide and being a clay aids in suspending the materials in the slurry. Barnard has proven valuable for iron slip glazes requiring high clay content. For example, a mixture of 90% Barnard and 20% calcium carbonate will produce a nearly black glaze around cone 9. Barnard clay is a silty material with very low plasticity; so low that it is difficult to form test specimens from it in the plastic state (yet the drying shrinkage is around 5.5%!). The material is extremely messy to work with and stains containers and everything it touches. There is some variation in the color (and thus of thevfired results of glazes and slips employing it). Fired bars are very dark brown at cone 04 proceeding to black at cone 4. At cone 6 it is beginning to melt. Cone 06 porosity is around 20% but drops sharply to 13% at cone 04 and then to near zero at cone 4 where maximum vitrification is attained (higher firing begins to expand test bars). It has a porosity of below 1% and almost 13% fired shrinkage at cone 4. At cone 04 the porosity is 13% and fired shrinkage is 7%.