A PRIMITIVE URN BURIAL. 611 



the Salt Springs in Illinois,"* lie quoted the opinions of the late dis- 

 tinguished antiquarians, J. W. Foster, ll. d,, and Dr. Chas. Rau, 

 that " the earthenware has evidently been molded in baskets," an 

 impracticable method because of the irapossibilitN^, as Mr. Sellers points 

 out, of " keeping in form and lining with heavy clay fragile baskets of 

 the large size of these old salt kettles." He then states, " I discovered 

 (at the salt springs near the Saline River, in southern Illinois), what 

 at first I took to be an entire kettle bottom up ; but on removing the 

 earth that covered it, it appeared to be a solid mass of sun-dried clay. 

 From its position among heaps of clay and shells, its hard, compact, 

 discolored — I may say almost polished — surface, I became satisfied it 

 was a mold on which the clay kettles had been formed, precisely as 

 in loam-molding at the present day." The soft clay was retained in 

 proper position on the mold with bandages of coarse textile fabric that 

 left their impression on the pottery, similar to the imprint that baskets 

 of the same texture would make if the plastic clay had been pressed 

 against their inner surface. This very simple method of casting the 

 large salt kettles — on the outside of the pattern — was probably the 

 same adopted in making the larger of the two pieces of pottery from 

 the Georgia burial mound (Fig. 2.). In its construction the clay when 

 soft must have had firm support on the inner side to resist the pressure 

 necessary to imprint its exterior surface with the carved type. When 

 dried sufficiently to retain its form the vessel may then have been 

 lifted from its mold and smoothed on the inside with water and the 

 open hand. In shaping the smaller vase the thin sheet of tough clay 

 was no doubt taken otf the molding block while yet pliable and its 

 upper margin drawn in gradually by careful manipulation. A slightly 

 wrinkled ap[)earance of the indrawn margin of the opening bears evi- 

 dence of this process. 



There is no good reason for believing that these two pieces of earth- 

 enware were made purposely for the inhumation of the incinerated 

 remains they finally inclosed, though they are in every respect so 

 remarkably well adapted for that use. By placing the conical vase 

 upright on a sui)port a little more than an inch in thickness, and invert- 

 ing the large pot over it, the receding rim of the vase exactly fits in 

 the curving side of the pot, as is shown in Fig. 1 ; the one covering 

 the other so accurately as to well nigh exclude the passage of air be- 

 tween the parts in contact. And this, I have been informed, was their 

 relative position when recovered from the mound. This vase, though 

 " new " and exhibiting no indications of previous use, is of a type — 

 Atnphora-like — quite common among the earthenware of the pottery- 

 making pre-Columbian Indians. The large pot, or kettle, as before 

 stated, bears evident marks of long-continued use in domestic or cul- 

 inary service. 



* Popular Science Monthly, 1877, vol. ii, p. 57:?, et seq. 



