FIRE, COOKING, A>JD VESSELS. 271 



fire." " Among the ladians along tlie Gulf, a gi'eater degree 

 of skill was displayed than witli those on the upper waters of 

 the Mississippi and on the lakes. Their vessels were generally- 

 larger and more symmetrical, and of a superior finish. They 

 moulded them over gourds and other models and baked them 

 in ovens. In the construction of those of large size, it was 

 customaiy to model them in baskets of willow or splints, which, 

 at the proper period, were burned off", leaving the vessel per- 

 fect in form, and retaining the somewhat ornamental markings 

 of their moulds. Some of those found on the Ohio seem to 

 have been modelled in bae's or nettinsfs of coarse thread or 

 twisted bark. These practices are still retained by some of the 

 remote western tribes. Of this description of pottery many 

 specimens are found with the recent deposits in the mounds."^ 

 Prince Maximilian of Wied makes the following remark on 

 some earthen vessels found in Indian mounds near Harmony, 

 on the Wabash River : — " They were made of a sort of grey 

 clay, marked outside with rings, and seemed to have been 

 moulded in a cloth or basket, being marked with impressions 

 or figures of this kind." ' 



It has been thought, too, that the early pottery of Europe 

 retains in its ornamentation traces of having once passed 

 through a stage in which the clay was surrounded by basket- 

 work or netting, either as a backing to support the finished 

 vessel, or as a mould to form it in. Dr. Klemm advanced this 

 view twenty years ago. ''The imitation (of natural vessels) in 

 clay presupposes numerous trials. In the Friendly Islands, we 

 find vessels which are still in an early stage ; they are made of 

 clay, slightly burnt, and enclosed in plaited work; so also the 

 oldest German vessels seem to have been, for we observe on 

 those which remain an ornamentation in which plaiting is imi- 

 tated by incised lines. What was no longer wanted as a ne- 

 cessity was kept up as an ornament."^ 



Dr. Daniel Wilson made a similar remark, some years later, 

 on early British urns which, he says, " may have been strength- 



> Squier & Davis, pp. 195, 187. 



2 Pr. Max. Voyage, vol. i. p. 192. Klemm, C. G., vol. ii. p. 66. 



3 Klemm, C. G., vol. i. p. 18S. 



