ABORIGINAL POTTERY. 573 



of a second, tlie time required in ordinary cases for the remaining act 

 of willing was easily calculated to be about one twenty-eighth of a 

 second. If these investigations can be regarded as entirely trustwor- 

 thy, they tend to show that the mind perceives somewhat more slowly 

 than it wills. 



Of the personal equation, in its widest sense, there are many ex- 

 amples even more suggestive and worthy of extended treatment than 

 these which have received mathematical measurement. These exam- 

 ples are to be found in all human action, and in the result of all human 

 work. Noticeably is this true in all acts and occupations which have 

 their basis and lowest forms in acts of imitation. None the less is it 

 true in those higher forms of art and action where close imitation is 

 less desired than the interpretation of some pervading spirit, or the 

 representation of some underlying essential. In the acts of painting a 

 landscape, of copying a picture, of interpreting a symphony, of read- 

 ing a poem, of acting a play, of following an argument, or in any of 

 the common or artistic acts of men, be they mental or pliysical, the 

 personal equation of the actor enters as a perceptible element in the 

 result. The discussion of the nature and value of the personal equa- 

 tion where it appears in forms so subtile as in the cases last mentioned 

 would furnish many considerations of interest and instruction, but to 

 undertake the treatment of these forms is beyond our present purpose 

 or opportunity. 



-*- 



ABOEIGINAL POTTERY OF THE SALT-SPRINGS, 



ILLINOIS. 



By GEORGE ESCOL SELLERS. 



IN the work by the late J. W. Foster, LL. D., on the " Prehistoric 

 Races of the United States of America," published in 18Y3, when 

 treating of the pottery of the mound-builders, on page 248, he says : 



" On the Saline River, Gallatin County, Illinois, according to MS. notes of Prof. 

 Cox, there is, just above low-water mark, a salt-spring, which was resorted to 

 in the earliest settlement of the country, by those of European descent, for the 

 purpose of procuring salt by evaporating the brine. Here occur, however, nu- 

 merous fragments of pottery, showing that a prehistoric people had resorted to 

 the same spring, and for the same purpose. From the slight curvature of the 

 fragments it is evident that the vessels were of large capacity. The material is 

 coarse, and the general thickness of the vessel is about half an inch, but at the 

 rim it is three-quarters of an inch. The exterior is marked by vertical lines 

 of depression about half an inch apart, with bars less conspicuous and close to- 

 gether, sometimes at right angles, and at others oblique. When I first saw these 

 specimens, I was somewhat surprised that the makers should bestow so much 

 ornamentation on vessels so coarsely made, and applied to such ordinary uses ; 



