Mr John Macadam's Analysis of Pottery. 275 



of variation among fresh-water mollusca, and accounts suffi- 

 ciently for a very remarkable palaeontological phenomenon, 

 which, at first glance, appeared to afford strong support to 

 the notion of a transmutation of species in time. — Travels in 

 Lycia^ by Professor Edward Forbes and Lieut, T. A. B. Spratt, 

 B.N., vol. ii., p. 199. 



Analysis of Pottery made by the Bed Indians of North Ame- 

 rica. By Mr John Macadam of Glasgow, Laboratory- 

 Assistant to Dr George Wilson, F.R.S.E., Edinburgh. 

 Communicated by the Royal Scottish Society of Arts.* 



The following is the analysis of a specimen of North Ame- 

 rican pottery sent from the neighbourhood of Peterborough, 

 Canada West, to Dr Wilson, from whom I received it, and 

 in whose laboratory the analysis hereafter detailed was per- 

 formed. 



Large quantities of broken clay vessels are frequently 

 found, being either turned up by the plough in those parts 

 of the country under cultivation, or else found imbedded in 

 mounds of earth in the interior of the forests in the vicinity* 

 which were at one time, and many parts of which are at pre- 

 sent, inhabited by the Ojibbeway or Chippewa Indians. 

 In all probability, the subject of this communication was the 

 manufacture of that tribe. 



Before, however, detailing its chemical composition, it will 

 be interesting to know something of its physical characters, 

 the most prominent of which are as follows. 



The pottery is of a brownish-black colour, the outer sur- 

 face being somewhat reddish. It is exceedingly hard and 

 difficult to fracture. The original form of the vessel cannot 

 be traced ; it would appear, however, to have been of consi- 

 derable dimensions, if we may judge from the shape of its 

 few remaining fragments. 



The vessel is ornamented around the sides with a design, 

 which has, no doubt, been taken from nature ; it somewhat 

 resembles a pinnate leaf. 



* Read and exhibited 25th January 1847. 



