HOLMES] SALT-MAKING VESSELS 29 



of these antique vessels that were described to us, lest, not having seen tliem, there 

 may be some error in the statements, which were, however, made in the fullest con- 

 fidence. The composition and general appearance of this fossil ])ottery can not lie 

 distinguished from those fragments of earthenware which are disclosed liy the 

 mounds of the oldest period, so common in this quarter, and evince the same rude 

 state of the arts. In all this species of pottery which we have examined there is a 

 considerable admixture of silex in the form of pounded quartz, or sand, in compar- 

 atively coarse grains; which, as is very well known, has a tendency to lessen the 

 shrinkage of the clay, to prevent cracks and flaws in di-ying, and to enable the mass 

 to sustain the sudden ai)plication of heat without lial)ility to hurst. The whole art 

 of making chemical crucililes, as well as those employed in a large way in several 

 manufactures where great heats are necessary, is founded on this principle." 



Brackeiiridge states that — 



The saline below Ste Genevieve, cleafed out some time ago and deepened, was found 

 to contain wagonloads of earthenware, some fragments bespeaking vessels as large as 

 a barrel, and proving that the salines had been worked before tliey were known to the 

 whites. '' 



In 1901 I visited a village site near Kinmiswick, Missouri, where 

 salt had been made by the aborigines from local saline springs. The 

 vicinity of the springs was plentifully supplied with the coarse, net- 

 marked sherds, and man}- pieces were .scattered over the neighboring 

 village site. Specimens restored from the fragments, and now pre- 

 served in museums in Kimmswick and St Louis, are shallow ]x)wls, 

 from 20 to 30 inches in diameter. Some specimens are quite plain. 

 A good example of this class is illustrated in plate x. 



The great depth at which the ware is sometimes found is i-ecorded 

 bj' Mr George Escoil Sellers, who has had ample opportunitj' for per- 

 sonal ob.servation of the Illinois salines. The bed rock in one of the 

 saline river springs worked by the whites is 42 feet below the surface, 

 and pottery was found at this depth by the W(n'kmen who sunk the 

 well. 



Mr Sellers's views are expressed in the following paragraph: 



This, to me, is conclusive evidence that, whoever the people were who left the 

 masses of broken pottery as proof of their having used the salt waters, they resorted 

 to precisely the same means as did their more civilized successors of our time — that 

 is, sinking wells or reservoirs to collect the brine; and the dipper-jug which had 

 been dropped had sunk to the bottom, showing that their reservoirs were down to 

 the rock. '' 



That the aboriginal peoples should have excavated to so great a 

 depth seems almost incredible. Excn if there were good reason for 

 such a work native appliances would hardly have been equal to the 

 task of constructing the necessary walls of stone or casing of wood. 

 It is mure prol)able that the spring chaimels were naturally of dimen- 

 sions permitting the vessels to sink gradually to these great depths. 



aSchooleraft, H. R., Travels in the central portions of the Mississippi valley, New York, 1825, p. 202. 

 Ji Brackenridge, H. M.. Views of Louisiana, Pittsburg, 1814, p. 186. 



f Sellers, George Escoil, Aboriginal pottery of the salt springs, Illinois, in Popular Science Monthly, 

 vol. .\i. New York, 1S77, p. 576. 



