K?8 A N C i E x\ T M O N U M E N T S . 



Experience seems to have suggested the means of so tempering the material as to 

 resist the action of fire; accordingly we find pounded shells, quartz, and sometimes 

 simple coarse sand from the streams, mixed with the clay. None of the pottery of 

 the present races, found in the Ohio valley, is destitute of this feature ; and it is 

 not uncommon, in certain localities, where from the abundance of fragments, and 

 from other circumstances, it is supposed the manufacture was specially carried on, 

 to find quantities of the decayed shells of the fresh-water molluscs intermixed with 

 the earth, which were probably brought to the spot to be used in the process. 

 Among the Indians along the Gulf, a greater degree of skill was displayed than with 

 those on the upper waters of the Mississippi and on the lakes. Their vessels were 

 generally larger and more symmetrical, and of a superior finisli. They moulded them 

 over gourds and other models, and baked them in ovens. In the construction of 

 those of large size, it was customary to model them in baskets of willow or spHnts, 

 which, at the proper period, were burned oli", leaving the vessel perfect in form, and 

 retaining the somewhat ornamental markings of their moulds. Some of those 

 found on the Ohio seem to have been modelled in bags or nettings of coarse thread 

 or twisted bark. These practices are still retained by some of the remote western 

 tribes. Of this description of pottery many specimens are found with the recent 

 deposits in the mounds. They are identical in every respect with those taken from 

 the known burial-grounds of the Indians ; and though generally of rude work- 

 manship, they are not destitute of a certain symmetry of shape and proportion. 



Among the mound-builders the art of pottery attained to a considerable degree of 

 perfection. Various though not abundant specimens of their skill have been 

 recovered, which, in elegance of model, delicacy, and finish, as also in fineness of 

 material, come fully up to the best Peruvian specimens, to which they bear, in 

 many respects, a close resemblance. They far exceed anything of which the 

 existing tribes of Indians are known to have been capable. It is to be regretted 

 that none of these remains have been recovered entire in the course of our 

 investigations : they have been found only in the altar or sacrificial mounds, and 

 always in fragments. The largest deposit was found in the long mound, No. 3, 

 " Mound City," (see i)age 149,) from which were taken fragments enough to 

 have originally composed a dozen vessels of medium size. By the exercise of 

 great care and patience in collecting and arranging the pieces, a few vessels have 

 been very nearly restored, — so nearly, as not only to show with all desirable accu- 

 racy their shape, but also the character of their ornaments. They exhibit a 

 variety of graceful forms. 



The material of which they are composed is a fine clay ; which, in the more 

 delicate specimens, appears to have been worked nearly pure, possessing a very 

 slight silicious intermixture. Some of the coarser specimens, though much supe- 

 rior in model, have something of the character of the Indian ware already described, 

 pulverized quartz being intermixed with the clay. Others are tempered with a 

 salmon-colored mica in small flakes, which gives them a ruddy and rather brilliant 

 appearance, and was perhaps introduced with some view to ornament as well as 



