272 FIRE, COOKING, AND VESSELS, 



ened by being surrounded with a platting of cords or ruslies. 

 ... It is certain that very many of the indented patterns on 

 British pottery have been produced by the impress of twisted 

 cords on the wet clay, — the intentional imitation, it may be, of 

 undesigned indentations originally made by the platted net- 

 work on ruder urns,'' etc.^ Mr. G. J. French mentions experi- 

 ments made by him in support of his views on the derivation 

 of the interlaced or guilloche ornaments on early Scottish 

 crosses, etc., fro; a imitation of earlier structures of wicker- 

 work. He coated baskets with clay, and found the wicker pat- 

 terns came out on all, but better on the sun-dried ones than 

 in those burnt in the kiln, in which the markings were injured 

 by the shrinkage, and he even seems to think that some an- 

 cient urns still preserved were actually moulded in this way, 

 judging from the lip being marked as if the wicker-work had 

 been turned in over the clay coating inside." 



Taken all together, the evidence of so many imperfect and 

 seemingly transitional forms of pottery makes it probable that 

 it was through such stages that the art grew up into the more 

 perfect form in which we usually find it, and in which it has 

 come to be clearly understood that clay, alone or with some 

 mixture of sand or such matters to prevent cracking, is capa- 

 ble of being used without any extraneous support. 



Such is the evidence by means of which I have attempted to 

 trace the progress of mankind in three important arts, whose 

 early history lies for the most part out of the range of direct 

 record. Its examination brings into view a gradual improve- 

 ment in methods of producing fire ; the supplanting of a rude 

 means of boiling food by a higher one ; and a progress from 

 the vessels of gourds, bark, or shell of the lower races to the 

 pottery and metal of the higher. On the whole, progress in 

 these useful arts appears to be the rule, and whether its steps 

 be slow or rapid, a step once made does not seem often to be 

 retraced. 



' Wilson, Archaeology, etc., of Scotland, p. 289. 



^ G. J. French, An Attempt, etc. ; Manchester (printed), 1858. 



