Aprii. 1, 1896.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



91 



It is said one calculated to hold four persons weighs only 

 fifty pounds. An oil distilled from the bark is much used 

 in Eussia for tanning the finer kinds of leather ; this oil 

 not only preserves the leather and prevents it from getting 

 mouldy, but also imparts that agreeable odour characteristic 

 of Russia leather. 



Fi&. 2. — Leaves of Birch. 



The sweet watery sap with which this tree abounds, and 

 which will flow freely if a notch be made through the bark 

 in spring, was formerly much valued for its supposed 

 medicinal -sirtues ; it was also fermented into a kind of beer 

 or wine, which is still done in some parts of Sweden. The 

 tree not only supplies beer and wine, but also tea, the young 

 eaves being sometimes used in Finland for this purpose. 



But the uses to which the birch has been put may be 

 said to be almost too numerous to mention. According to 

 Loudon, the Highlanders made evenjthinii of it : — " They 

 build their houses, make their beds, chairs, tables, dishes, 

 spoons, construct their mills, make their carts, ploughs, 

 harrows, gates and fences, and even manufacture ropes 

 of it. The branches are employed as fuel in the distillation 

 of whiskey ; the spray is used for smoking hams and her- 

 rings, for which last purpose it is preferred to every other 

 kind of wood. The bark is used for tanning leather, and 

 sometimes, when dried and twisted into a rope, for candles. 

 The spray is used for thatching houses, and, when dried in 

 summer with the leaves on, makes a good bed where heather 

 is scarce." We suspect the absence of better wood had not 

 a little to do with many of these uses. 



The tree is most liable to a disease produced by a very 

 minute gall-mite, which attacks the young buds and causes 

 them to grow into a large mass of twigs like an old rook's 

 nest ; these are known as witch-knots or witches' brooms. 



GREEK VASES.-II.* 



1 



-VASES OF THE PRIMITIVE PERIOD, TO 

 600 B.C. 



By H. B. Walters, M.A., F.S.A. 



N this article we shall trace the history of the ceramic 

 art in Greece from its earliest beginnings down to the 

 time when it may be said to have passed out of the 

 primitive period, and to be beginning to take high 

 rank as a decorative art. A rough limit of demar- 



The first article appeared in the February number of KxcWLBDOS. 



cation between this period and that discussed under the 

 heading B is the introduction of mythological subjects, 

 and, from a technical point of view, the adoption of certain 

 processes for enhancing the effects of an otherwise simple 

 style of decoration. It will be the purpose of this article 

 to show how this development is attained. 



The earUest vases that have been discovered on Greek 

 soil are represented by the finds of Dr. Scbliemann at 

 Hissarlik, the supposed site of the ancient Troy. These vases 

 are of a very rude type, and must belong to a very primi- 

 tive civilization. The forms are very varied, but suggest 

 rather experiments on the part of the potter than a 

 fixed number of types, each for a different purpose. We 

 note in the so-called " owl vases," which are roughly 

 manufactured into the form of that bird, a first attempt 

 to establish, in the analogy between a vase and a Uving 

 thing, a principle of design and decoration (on which 

 principle we speak of the " mouth," " body," " foot," etc., 

 of a vase). The Hissarlik vases are hand-made, and 

 fired to a dull black colour ; they are never painted, but 

 patterns are occasionally scratched upon them. 



The products of the Island of Santorin (the ancient 

 Thera) and of the neighbouring islands of the Archipelago 

 are of a more developed kind. These vases have been 

 found beneath a stratum of lava, the result of a great 

 volcanic eruption, which, on geological evidence, is sup- 

 posed to have taken place between 2000 and 1800 b.c; and 

 there is no doubt they were made from local clay. The 

 most notable feature in this ware is that for the first time 

 we have 'vases painted with vegetable patterns and figures 

 of animals. This is in 

 itself a very great and 

 remarkable advance. 

 The colours are applied 

 with a brush, and two 

 tones — a yellowish 

 white and a brown^ 

 are employed. 



The vases of Thera 

 supply a natural point 

 of transition to the 

 second great stage of 

 early art represented 

 by the Mycensan ware. 

 Spread over virtually 

 the whole of the 

 ancient classical world 

 there has been found 

 a class of pottery more 

 or less uniform in 

 technique and orna- 

 mentation. In the first 

 instance the discovery 

 of vases of this class 

 had been confined to 

 the islands of the 

 ^Egean Sea, more 

 especially Rhodes and 

 Crete, and they had 

 attracted com- 

 paratively little notice from arch;i>ologists. But the exca- 

 vations of Dr. Schliemann on the Acropolis of Mycena- 

 from 187G onwards, together with results obtained near 

 Athens and from other parts of Greece proper, have 

 brought about a great change in this respect. In the tombs 

 of Mycena' large quantities of vases have been found with 

 the same characteristics as those previously found in the 

 islands. The special interest which they have evoked is 

 due to the fact that they are, with some show of probability, 



Flo. 3. — .lug of KhoJian Style. 

 From the Island of Thera. 



