holmes] ORIGIN OF USE OF FABRICS IN POTTERY. 425 



lautic States, it cannot be affirmed that anything like a complete idea 

 of their fabrics has been gained. Impressions upon pottery represent 

 a class of work utilized in the fictile arts. We cannot say what other 

 fabrics were produced and used for other purposes. 



However this may be, attention should be called to the fact that the 

 work described, though varied and ingenious, exhibits no characters in 

 execution or design not wholly consonant with the art of a stone-age 

 people. There is nothing superior to or specifically different from the 

 work of our modern Indians. 



The origin of the use of fabrics and of separate cords in the ornamenta- 

 tion of pottery is very obscure. Baskets and nets were doubtless iu use 

 by many tribes throughout their pottery making period. The shaping 

 of earthen vessels in or upon baskets either of plain bark or of woven 

 splints or of fiber must frequently have occurred. The peculiar impres- 

 sions left upon the clay probably came iu time to be regarded as orna- 

 mental, and were applied for purposes of embellishment alone. Deco- 

 rative art has thus been enriched by many elements of beauty. These 

 now survive in incised, stamped, and painted designs. The forms as 

 well as the ornamentation of clay vessels very naturally preserve traces 

 of the former intimacy of the two arts. 



Since the stereotyping of these pages I have come upon a short paper 

 by George E. Sellers (Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XI, p. 573), in which 

 is given what I believe to be a correct view of the use of nets in the 

 manufacture of the large salt vessels referred to on pages 398 and 409. 

 The use of interior conical moulds of indurated clay makes clear the 

 reasons for the reversed festooniug of the cords to which I called at- 

 tention. 



