FROM NEW MEXICO. 381 



exactly an inch in width, which contains a series of connected half spirals 

 of symmetrical arrangement. On the outside of the fragment there is a 

 portion of a border which was made of lozenge-shaped and zigzag figures. 

 Another fragment from this lot shows that both sides of a bowl were very 

 prettily ornamented, and that its edge was also marked with squares, which 

 united with the black line forming the upper edge of the border on the 

 inside. As fig-ures are necessary in order to give a proper idea of the pat- 

 terns of ornamentation ou this old pottery, I must refer to such as have 

 appeared in several publications, particularly the plates in Lieutenant 

 Simpson's volume and in the third volume of the Reports of the Pacific 

 Railroad Survey.* 



A comparison of this ancient pottery with that made by the present 

 inhabitants of the pueblos shows that a great deterioration has taken place 

 in native American art, a rale wdxich, I think, can be applied to all the more 

 advanced tribes of America. The remarkable hardness of all the fragments 

 of colored pottery which have been obtained from the vicinity of the old 

 ruins in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, and also of the pottery 

 of the same character found in the ruins of adobe houses and in caves in 

 Utah, shows that the ancient people understood the art of baking earthen- 

 ware far better than their probable descendants now living in the pueblos of 

 New Mexico and Arizona. The gray clay seems to contain a large amount 

 of siliceous material, which, on being subjected to a great heat, becomes 

 slightly vitrified. The vessels made of the gray colored clay have appar- 

 ently received a thin wash of the same, upon which the black ornamentation 

 was put, before baking. The intense heat to which the vessels were after- 

 wards subjected has vitrified this thin layer of clay, which now appears like 

 a thin glaze. The polish is probably due to smoothing the surface with 

 a stone before the thin wash was applied, as is now done by several 

 tribes in the United States and Mexico. The black substance, uniting with 

 the clay-wash, was burnt in and became a fast color. The red color was 

 produced by the addition of a large proportion of red ochre, or oxide of 

 iron, with the gray clay, and thus, according to the greater or less amount 

 of iron used, the clay is more or less red throughout. To some vessels a 



* The latest contribution to this subject is contained in the Report by Dr. Hayden for 1876. 



