674 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



purpose of the founders of the republic, is an invasion of free- 

 dom and a step toward degradation. As has invariably happened, 

 and as Hamilton so clearly foresaw, such a policy will eventually 

 turn the most civilized people into a race of barbarians, prone not 

 only to assail one another but to attack their neighbors at home 

 and abroad. In another way, and in that way only, must the goal 

 of human existence be attained; it is to put within the reach of the 

 poorest and weakest the means to resist the rich and strong. In- 

 stead of spending countless millions upon a work that should be left 

 to the people themselves, the work of education, the regulation of 

 morals, labor, and trade, the initiation and management of industrial 

 enterprises, spend them, if need be, upon the establishment of a 

 scrupulous justice free to all. Then will it be possible to mitigate 

 and, in time, to end the countless evils of vice and crime that come 

 of war and despotism. Then will people learn to provide for them- 

 selves the thousand blessings, moral and material, born of peace and 

 freedom. Then will be solved the only problems of democracy that 

 require or admit of solution — the simple but weighty problems of 

 self-support and self-control. 



T 



FABRIC-MARKED POTTERY. 



By F. S. UELLENBAUGH. 



HE cord markings on American pottery have been usually 

 -A- ascribed mainly to a desire on the part of the aboriginal potter 

 for decoration. While this may in some cases have been the pur- 

 pose of the application of the fabrics, which are so distinctly seen 

 in the casts made by Mr. Holmes, it has occurred to me that origi- 

 nally the decorative purpose, if there was any, was quite a secondary 

 matter, and that the real object of the net or coarse fabric was to aid 

 construction. It was one of the means invoked by the primitive 

 potter to enable him to handle his pot or jar when complete and be- 

 fore it could receive the firing. 



As these vessels show no evidence of the " coil ' : process, he 

 must have used some kind of a mold or form. If built on interior 

 molds of indurated clay, as has been suggested,* there would be 

 great difficulty in removing the pot from the mold, hence it seems 

 to me this was not the kind of mold used. 



The earlier potters probably used baskets that came up to the 

 curved-in part of the jar, which was continued above the basket by 



* George E. Sellers. Popular Science Monthly, vol. xi, p. 573. 



