REMAINS OF ANCIENT WORKMANSHIP. go 



sent the head of a snake, or perhaps the bill of a duck. It belongs to Dr. P. R. 

 Hoy, of Racine. 



Fig. 39 is of artificial pottery. Figs. 40 and 50 are of argillite or clay slate rock. 

 Fig. 41 is of steatite. Figs. 42, 43, 44, 46, and 47, are of gray sandstone, of a fine 

 grain, and with argillaceous admixture. Fig. 45 is of reddish sandstone. Fig. 48 is 

 of the red pipe-stone. Fig. 49 is of a whitish, or chalk-like stone. 



In no one article was so much ingenuity displayed by aboriginal natives as in 

 pipe making. Many of the pipes are formed with much taste, and are designed 

 to be representations of animals with which they were familiar. 



Arrow-points and spear-heads have occasionally been found in the mounds ; but 

 they mostly occur on, or not far beneath, the surface of the ground. They gene- 

 rally consist of schist or hornstone, usually denominated flint. 



Fig. 52 represents an interesting form of arrow-point, narrower than usual, 

 lozenge-shaped, and enlarged at the posterior extremity. 



Remains of broken pottery are found in the mounds, and also 

 in great abundance wherever there has been an Indian settlement. 

 The pots were formed by hand, of clay and sand, or fine gravel, 

 occasionally mixed with broken shells and other substances, and 

 then slightly burned. The potter's wheel, that most ancient of 

 all machines, was evidently not in use among the aboriginal in- 

 habitants of America. 



The pots, or vases, found in the mounds at Waukesha and 

 Racine, were in connection with the original deposit, and must, 

 therefore, have been the woi'k of the mound-builders. They 

 agree in every respect with the fragments found about the old one baif natural size. 

 Indian villages ; and probably with the same articles as now 

 manufactured by the females of tribes residing on the Missouri.^ 



The vessels were variously ornamented by lines and dots stamped upon them, 

 when in a soft state, by hand. Occasionally the whole surface is so marked, but 

 usually the rim only is ornamented. 



The vases obtained at Waukesha, and also at Aztalan, must have been broken 

 before they were deposited in the mounds ; for only portions of different vases could 

 be found. 



Fig. 53 represents the vase found in a mound at Racine, and restored by Dr. P. 

 R. Hoy, described in Chapter I." 



^ Mr. Catlin informs us that "earthen dishes are made by the Mandan women in great quantities, 

 and modelled in a thousand forms and tastes. They are made from a tough black clay, and baked in 

 kiln& which are made for the purpose, and are nearly equal in hardness to our own manufactured pottery, 

 though they have not yet got the art of glazing. They make them so strong and serviceable, however, 

 that they hang them over the iire as we do our iron kettles, and boil their meat in them with perfect 

 success. Here women can be seen handling them by hundreds, moulding them in fanciful forms, and 

 passing them through the kilns." — Catlin's North American Indians, I, 116 ; quoted in Squier's 

 Antiquities of New York, page 132. 



^ That the state of the potter's art among the southern nations was not much more advanced than in 

 Wisconsin, appears from the following extract : "The ancient pottery of Nicaragua is always well 



