NORTH AMERICAN ARCHiEOLOGY. 321 



Wooden implements are so perishable that we could not expect many of them 

 to have been found. Two or three wooden bowls, a trough, and some shovels 

 with long handles, are all that appear to be recorded. 



It has often been stated that the Indians possessed some method, at present 

 unknown, by which they were enabled to harden the copper. This, however, 

 from examinations instituted by Prof. Wilson, seems to be in error. Some 

 copper implements, which he submitted to Prof. Crofts, were found to be no 

 harder than the native copper from Lake Superior. " The structure of the metal 

 was also highly laminated, as if the instrument had been brought to its present 

 shape by hammering out a solid mass of copper." 



POTTERY. 



Before the introduction of metallic vessels, the art of the potter was much 

 more important even than it is at present. Accordingly, the sites of all ancient 

 habitations are marked by numerous fragments of pottery lying about ; this is 

 as true of the ancient Indian settlements as of the Celtic towns of England, or 

 the Lake villages of Switzerland. These fragments, however, would generally 

 be those of rude household vessels, and it is principally from the tumuli that we 

 obtain those better-made urns and cups from which the state of the art may 

 fairly be inferred. Yet I know of no British sepulchral urn, belonging to the 

 stone age, which has upon it a curved line. It is unnecessary to add that rep- 

 resentations of animals or plants are entirely wanting. They are also absent 

 from all articles belonging to the bronze age in Switzerland, and I might almost 

 say in Western Europe generally, while ornaments of curved and spiral lines 

 are eminently characteristic of this period. The ornamental ideas of the stone 

 age, on the other hand, are confined, so far as we know, to compositions of 

 straighter lines, and the idea of a curve does not seem to have occurred to them. 

 The most elegant ornaments on their vases are impressions of the finger-nail, or 

 of a cord wound round the soft clay. 



Very different was the condition of American art. Dr. Wilson has well 

 pointed out that, as regards Europe, "in no single case is any attempt made to 

 imitate leaf or flower, bird, beast, or any simple natural object; and when, in 

 the bronze work of the later iron period, imitative fonns at length appear, they 

 are chiefly the snake and dragon shapes and patterns, borrowed seemingly by 

 Celtic and Teutonic wanderers, with the wild fancies of their mythology, from 

 the far eastern cradle land of their birth." This rule, however general, is not 

 quite without exceptions; witness the bronze knife, fig. 166, in the catalogue of 

 the Copenhagen museum. This interesting specimen has for a handle the figure 

 of a man, which, however, is but a poor specimen of art. Moreover, some doubt 

 may possibly be entertained about the age of this knife ; the tip is broken off, 

 but the blade, as far as it goes, is quite straight in the back, a form which, 

 though general in the iron age, is seldom, if ever, found in knives of the bronze 

 age, in which the back part is always more or less curved.* 



But I mvist not suifer myself to be led into a digression on ancient art, es- 



Eecially as M. Morlot has been specially devoting himself to this study, and, in 

 is forthcoming work on the Antiquities of Mecklenbourg, will, I hope, throw 

 much light on the subject. 



"Among the North American mound-builders the art of pottery attained to a 

 considerable degree of perfection " Some vases, indeed, are said to rival, " in ele- 

 gance of model, delicacy, and finish," the best Peruvian specimens. The ma- 

 terial used is a fine clay; in the more delicate specimens, pure; in the coarser 

 ones, mixed with pounded quartz. The art of glazing and the use of the pot- 



* I except, of course, the small razor-knives, which (Copenhagen Catalogue, Nos. 171 to 

 175) have a totally different form. These, moreover, from the character of their ornamenta- 

 tion, belong probably to the close of the bronze age, it" not to that of iron. 



21 S 



