ANCIENT RELICS AT DAYTON, OHIO. 843 



hauds as a potter, took recourse to many a device to form his clay. 

 Common in the south was the molding of his work over a gourd and 

 then burning out the gourd by means of tire. In the north the clay was 

 often molded in a bag made from the coarse fibers of some plant, proba- 

 bly from the fibrous bark of some tree. On burning the vessels impres- 

 sions were left of the bag, sometimes even of the nature of its woof. In 

 a fine specimen found at our diggings even the individual fibers have 

 left their impress ; on the other hand apiece found about 7 miles away, 

 in a southeasterly directiou, along the same river, shows very plainly a 

 seiies of parallel threads a short distance apart, crossed vertically by 

 an abundance of threads which are placed side by side. This is the 

 plan of some " mound builder's " cloth fouud in the same neighborhood, 

 and illustrates the manner of work. Baskets of willow and of wood 

 splinters are said to have been used. Some few pieces of pottery found 

 with the rest may have been molded in this manner, but the impres- 

 sious left are not plain enough to determine this with certainty. On 

 the other hand bark impressions are very common, someof which might 

 possibly belong to bark-basket work, but a careful study makes me be- 

 lieve that most of the bark impressions were made in order to make the 

 pot look more beautiful than it would with a plain surface. Basket 

 work would require that the impressions should occasionally cross each 

 other, which they rarely do. Again, these impressions commonly ap- 

 pear about the necks of pots, a place which derives its shape from the 

 hand, as may be seen from the delicate curves there necessary, at least 

 in the finer pots, and it would be too much to assign this delicateness 

 to the forming baskets, especially as the neck is generally smooth, 

 owing, no doubt, to contact with the fingers while the neck was being 

 molded. Again, the bark marks appear on the rim of the vessels, a 

 place usually formed, not in contact with the basket, if there be any, but 

 by the fingers. 



The edge of the vessel, according to modern notions of pottery, is 

 fashioned last, and after the neck has been contracted. After the edge 

 is turned over to form the rim, the inside surface thus exposed forming 

 the rim on the outside, should manifestly have no back markings, but 

 the contrary is the case. Again, the handle, fashioned by hand and 

 afterward stuck on, often has bark markings on the outside of the curve, 

 sometimes within. I have been thus explicit in order to show that much 

 of this bark-marking is a matter of art, not of accident, and that the 

 object was the beautifying of the pot. At any rate, a specimen was 

 found in which an attempt of bark imitation was made by means of 

 some sharp-pointed instrument, which made the surface look more hand- 

 some than a mere bark impression would have done. The lines of this 

 instrument intersect each other at angles impossible in bark impres- 

 sions of the character here represented. 



The idea of relief having once been gained, it could readily be ap- 

 plied in other ways, the most successful being the work on the pots 



