FABRIC-MARKED POTTERY. 



6 77 



being of a uniform thickness and easily removed, impressed them- 

 selves fully upon the exterior surface of the jar, the plain portions 

 being the impress of the smoothed sides 

 of the mold hole. Of the wicker-marked 

 ware, however, only the prominent pro- 

 jections of the form made an impression, 

 the plain surfaces corresponding to the 

 sandy filling that was resorted to for pre- 

 venting the soft clay from squeezing into 

 and through the interstices. In some 

 kinds of basketry more filling was neces- 

 sary than in others, which explains the 

 frequent greater separation and irregu- 

 larity of the markings. For example, 

 Fig. 5 shows far less of the wicker im- 

 pressions than Fig. 3, and Fig. 2 gives 

 only the irregular salients of an exceedingly coarse support. It seems 

 probable that the wicker-marked pottery is the most primitive, and 

 .an extended study of it might lead to a clearer understanding of 

 the beginnings of pottery-making. The next distinct advance was 

 apparently the use of a fabric as a base, supported by some smooth 

 surface, and then as a further development the coil ware, a process 

 still in use among the Moki, and the simplest and easiest way of 

 modeling a clay vessel without the aid of the wheel; progress in 

 pottery, as in other arts, having been in the direction of simplicity of 

 construction combined with skill in execution. 



The probable line of development in pottery-making was then 

 about like this: 



1. Made on the outside of a wicker form. Confined chiefly to 

 bowls. 2. Made on the inside of a wicker form. 3. Made on net- 

 ting in mold hole. 4. Coil-made. 5. Wheel-made, which Indians 

 seem never to have attained. 



There was doubtless no sharp line of separation anywhere be- 

 tween these several stages, but they merged into each other as the 

 dawn merges into the day. 



The most important of the accessions to the library of Columbia Uni- 

 versity during 1897 was a gift of 387 books, mainly illustrated works in art. 

 architecture, and natural history. Among them are Audubon's Quadru- 

 peds, Sepp's Nederlandsche InseJcten, Gould's Humming Birds, Le Vaillant's 

 Oiseaux d'Afrique, and other illustrated works in natural history, many 

 of them colored by hand ; a hand-colored copy of Catlin's American Indians, 

 Schoolcraft's Indians, Pennant's Archaeological and Zoological Works, with 

 rare and valuable portraits, and books on the Baltic provinces, Livonia, and 

 Frisia. 



