POTTERY AND ARTICLES OF CLAY. 195 



Fig. 80 presents greatly reduced sketches of a couple of clay pipes. The one 

 indicated by the figure 1 was found in a mound in Florida, and is now in the 

 museum of the Historical Society of New York ; the other is from a mound in 

 South Carolina, and is in the cabinet of Dr. S. G. Morton, of Philadelphia. Most 

 of the ancient clay pipes that have been discovered have this form, which is not 

 widely different from that adopted by the later Indians. 



Notwithstanding the regularity of figure and uniformity of thickness which 

 many of the specimens of aboriginal pottery exhibit, it is clear that they were all 

 moulded by hand. There is no evidence that the potter's wheel was known, nor 

 that the art of glazing, as now practised, was understood. It is not impossible, but 

 on the contrary appears extremely probable, from a close inspection of the mound 

 pottery, that the ancient people possessed the simple approximation towards the 

 potter's wheel, consisting of a stick of wood grasped in the hand by the middle 

 and turned round inside a wall of clay, formed by the other hand or by another 

 workman. The polish, which some of the finer vessels possess, is due to other 

 causes, and is not the result of vitrification. That a portion of the ancient pottery 

 was not baked is very certain ; but that another portion, including all vessels 

 which were designed for common use, for cooking and similar purposes, was 

 burned, is equally certain. In some of the Southern States, it is said, the kilns, 

 in which the ancient pottery was baked, are now occasionally to be met with. 

 Some are represented still to contain the ware, partially burned, and retaining the 

 rinds of the gourds, etc., over which they were modelled, and which had not been 

 entirely removed by the fire. " In Panola county," says Mr. R. Morris, in a 

 private letter, "are found great numbers of what are termed '■pottery kilns ;^ in 

 which are masses of vitrified matter, frequently in the form of rude bricks, 

 measuring twelve inches in length by ten in breadth." It seems most likely that 

 these " kilns " are the remains of the manufactories of the later tribes, the Choc- 

 taws and Natchez, who, says Adair, " made a prodigious number of vessels of 

 pottery, of such variety of forms as would be tedious to describe, and impossible 

 to name." 



