SMITHSONIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 



37 



being rather uncouth specimens of aboriginal art; others, again, are tolerably 

 well formed, and betoken no small degree of perseverance on the part of their 

 makers. Most of those seen by the writer were of an elongated shape, some 

 what like a boat or a trough, and provided with projections or handles at the 

 opposite narrower extremities (Fig. 143, Massachusetts). A bowl-shaped 

 vessel from Wyoming Territory (Fig. 144) is made of the same material. 

 By far the best potstone vessels, however, have been found in the Caliibrnian 

 districts before mentioned. lu Among them are nearly globular cooking vessels 

 with rather narrow apertures encircled by raised rims. Some of them measure 

 more than a foot in height and fifteen inches in diameter, and their thickness, 

 about five-eighths of an inch at the rim, gradually increases toward the bottom. 

 These utensils are admirable specimens of Indian skill, being almost as regu 

 lar in outline as though they had been produced with the assistance of the 

 turner s wheel (Fig. 145, Dos Pueblos, Santa Barbara Count) ). Other Cali- 

 fornian potstone vessels of large size present the shape of high bowls. One 

 of them is pierced with two small holes near the rim, evidently for repairing 

 the damage produced by a crack (Fig. 14(5, Dos Pueblos). Among the smaller 

 vessels made of the same material, and obtained from the same region, may 

 be mentioned one which is formed in the shape of a boat (Fig. 147, Santa 

 Cruz Island). Serpentine was likewise employed by the California!! aborigines 

 as the material for vessels, such as cups, bowls, etc., which are in no way in 

 ferior to those made of potstone, and even surpass them by being well polished 

 (Fig. 148, serpentine, San Miguel Island). It seems, however, that only small 

 or medium-sized objects of this class were made of serpentine. A small Cali- 

 fornian sandstone vessel with an oval aperture, and deeply hollowed, probably 

 served as a drinking cup (Fig. 149, Santa Cruz Island). 



152 



151 



STONE PLATES 



It may not be altogether out of place to mention in connection with stone 

 vessels a class of remarkable stone plates, which possibly may have pertained 

 to the culinary utensils of the aborigines. One of the specimens is a perfectly 



&quot;These stone vessels as well as the Californian mortars anil pestles described ou the following pages 

 were recovered from graves by Mr. 1 aul Schumacher. 



