537 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Polarization 

 Poverty 



essential to a knowledge of industrial prog- 

 ress. The Zuni woman's extremely simple 

 potter's wheel, which is nothing more than 

 the turning of her vessel about in a box 

 of dry sand as the work goes on, is only 

 a little more rude than the fashion in the 

 interior of China of putting a lump of clay 

 on the top of a revolving shaft which they 

 turn with one hand while the pot is formed 

 with the other. The potter's wheel was 

 known in the world from high antiquity. 

 The Africans push a mass of clay around 

 with one hand and form it with the other. 

 MASON Aboriginal American Mechanics 

 (Memoirs of the International Congress of 

 Anthropology, p. 80). (Sch. K. C.) 



2648. POTTERY, ANCIENT, MOD- 

 ELED ON BASKETWORK Prompted, it 

 may be, by the very act of making a coiled 

 basket, the ancient potter rolled out a fillet 

 or slender cylinder of prepared paste about 

 the thickness, say, of a chalk crayon. Every 

 one who reads these lines has more than 

 once seen children playing with putty, roll- 

 ing it out into fillets and then coiling it. The 

 cook also makes little cakes after the same 

 process, and the tidy housewife supplies 

 herself thus with mats for her tables. 



The ancient potter also coiled her fillet of 

 soft clay around and around in an orderly 

 manner, pinching as she went. . . . This 

 work was done occasionally on the outside 

 of a basket, bowl, or another vase. But the 

 work was more frequently built up by the 

 hands, guided chiefly by the eye, until the 

 vessel was finished. Luckily for the student, 

 many vessels are left in the corrugated con- 

 dition produced by the pinching and coiling. 

 These examples not only show the process 

 here referred to, but they evidence a mar- 

 velous variety of finger-nail and finger-tip 

 work. MASON Woman's Share in Primitive 

 Culture, ch. 5, p. 98. (A., 1894.) 



2649. POTTERY, IMPORTANCE OF, 

 TO PRIMITIVE MAN Before the intro- 

 duction of metallic vessels the art of the 

 potter was more important even than it is 

 at present. Accordingly, the sites of all 

 ancient habitations are generally marked 

 by numerous fragments of pottery; this is 

 as true of the ancient Indian settlements 

 as of the Celtic towns of England or the 

 lake villages of Switzerland. AVEBUBY Pre- 

 historic Times, ch. 8, p. 242. (A., 1900.) 



2650. POTTERY, ORIGIN OF, LOST IN 

 PREHISTORIC TIMES The Potter's Wheel 

 in Egypt A Type of Creation Hand-made 

 Pottery in Hebrides. In Europe, as any 

 museum of antiquities shows, the funeral 

 urns and other earthen vessels of the Stone 

 and Bronze ages were hand-made; and even 

 now tourists who visit the Hebrides buy 

 earthen cups and bowls of an old woman 

 who makes them in ancestral fashion with- 

 out a potter's wheel, and ornaments them 

 with lines drawn with a pointed stick. Yet 

 the potter's wheel was known in the world 



from high antiquity . . . , as shown in 

 the wall-paintings of the Tombs of the 

 Kings. It is seen that they turned the 

 wheel by hand. So the Hindu potter is 

 described as now going down to the river- 

 side when a flood has brought him a deposit 

 of fine clay, when all he has to do is to 

 knead a batch of it, stick up his pivot in the 

 ground, balance the heavy wooden table 

 on the top, give it a spin round, and set to 

 work. It was an improvement on this sim- 

 plest wheel to work it from below by the 

 foot, and in our potteries a laborer drives 

 it with a wheel and band, but the principle 

 remains unchanged. As we watch with un- 

 tiring pleasure the potter with this simple 

 machine so easily bringing shape out of 

 shapelessness, we can well understand how 

 in the ancient world it seemed the very type 

 of creation, so that the Egyptians pictured 

 one of their deities as a potter molding 

 man on the wheel. TYLOR Anthropology, 

 ch. 11, p. 274. (A., 1899.) 



2651. POTTERY, PRIMITIVE The 



Work of Woman Made To Meet the De- 

 mand for Cooking. Women were the first 

 ceramic artisans and developed all the tech- 

 nic, the forms, and the uses of pottery. The 

 inventions concerned in this industrial prog- 

 ress are far-reaching in their own extent, 

 in the influence which they have had in the 

 refinement and development of women, and 

 in the rewards of happiness which they 

 brought to the races and tribes favored by 

 their presence. . . . Pottery or earlier 

 substitutes therefor had no place in the 

 kitchen until the mush-making or meat- 

 seething stage of cookery had arrived. 

 MASON Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, 

 ch. 5, p. 91. (A., 1894.) 



2652. 



Once Made by Wom- 



en, Still Made for Women. Long ago wom- 

 en made pottery for themselves to wear 

 out and only a little for the convenience 

 or delight of men. The very first woman 

 that made pottery, perhaps, set the vessel 

 on her head and went to the spring for 

 water. A procession of women have been 

 walking about over the earth ever since 

 with jars on their heads. This first woman 

 used another jar to cook food and another 

 to serve it, and another to keep it clean 

 and away from vermin and insects. Pray, 

 what are millions of her great-grandchildren 

 doing this very day but the selfsame things ? 

 It matters not who makes pottery, they are 

 making it for women. Their convenience 

 alone is consulted in its form, its temper 

 and material. Its decorations are borrowed, 

 and, tho her hands be no longer grimed 

 with the paste, her wants and her imagina- 

 tion preside over the wheel. MASON Wom- 

 an's Share in Primitive Culture, ch. 5, p. 

 113. (A., 1894.) 



2653. POVERTY AND THE STARS 



Enthusiasm for Science A Life Course 

 Changed. It was not without a struggle 



