EARTHENWARE OF THE NEW YORK ABORIGINES IO7 



Fig. 123 is taken from the' small figure in Morgan's League of the 

 Iroquois, which he considered typical of the pottery of the Genesee 

 valley. It fairly represents some forms. Fig. 124 is taken from a 

 small picture of one of the cave vessels of New York city, and was 

 described at the time as ' of dark red clay, 18 inches in diameter 

 at the mouthy and 2 feet high. It is contracted slightly 3 inches from 

 the rim, and flares a little in the middle. The bottom has the same 

 curious peak as that of the pot found in the knoll. Near the rim 

 are nine roughly executed rows of indentations,, evidently made 

 with a sharp stick. Perpendicularly from the lowest row run 

 roughened belts of clay about 2^ inches wide.' 



x\fter the above was written Mr W. L. Calver wrote very de- 

 cidedly in reply to a question about the pointed base. He had not 

 been able to examine closely the vessels in question, the curators 

 of that department of the American museum of natural history being 

 away, but said, ' As far as I can see none have anything like a 

 pointed base, and ?.s I have known them from the first discovery, I 

 can say quite positively that none found hereabouts ever had any 

 other than rounded bottoms. My large pot, from near the Cheno- 

 weth cave, has -a rounded bottom. Mr A. E. Douglass says that he 

 knows of no New York pottery with pointed base.' 



The feature claimed was so improbable that the figure here given 

 was introduced with some hesitation^ but the claim was made so 

 confidently that.it was thought best to show by one example just 

 what it was. The opinion of so careful an archeologist as Mr Calver, 

 with special experience in local work, settles the question. The 

 vessels from the metropolis are like those from other parts of New 

 York. 



A number of vessels have been found in New York city, in the 

 vicinity of Harlem, which are worthy of notice, and perhaps closer 

 study than can be given them now. Illustrations and descriptions 

 were given in the New York papers, at the time they were found 

 in 1890. These prove unreliable, but one of the simplest forms is 

 reproduced here to show one supposed feature of this pottery. The 

 accessible figures of the others differ greatly in outline from com- 

 mon forms. Some were reconstructed from fragments^ and the 



