42 
Some of the methods employed in the manufacture of pottery are 
suggested by the appearance and structure of some of the specimens, 
including a few, irregular, baked nodules of clay, either accidentally or 
purposely baked, but of which only one shows tempering. 
The material used in making all but a very few of the pots was clay 
tempered with crushed gneiss; the broken edge of one of the fragments 
shows what seem to be particles of limestone. The tempering material is 
of several grades, from fine to very coarse, being medium coarse in the 
largest number of pots and very coarse in only a few of the larger vessels. 
The pottery was not made by the coiling process, at least none of it is 
broken into long, narrow pieces, with two long edges parallel, as in coiled 
Algonkian ware from the Atlantic coast {See Smith, 3, Plate VIII, figure 
11 a). If this were the method followed in making the pottery from this 
site, the potters must have been unusually adept in blending and obscuring 
the junctions of the coils. It is more likely that the pots were formed 
directly from a mass of clay in the manner described by Sagard, who, 
speaking of what seems to have been the Huron method, says: “The 
savages make them by taking some earth of the right kind, which, they 
clean and knead well in their hands, mixing with it, on what principle I 
know not, a small quantity of grease. Then making the mass the shape 
of a ball, they make an indentation in the middle of it with the fist, which 
they make continually larger by striking repeatedly on the outside with a 
little wooden paddle as much as is necessary to complete it. These vessels 
are of different sizes, without feet or handles, completely round like a ball, 
excepting the mouth, which projects a little” (2:260). Experiments made 
by the writer showed that it was possible to make most of the smaller pots 
found here by this method. The small toy pot mentioned on page 35 was 
modelled over the end of a finger. 
There is no evidence that a thin slip of clay was applied to the surface 
of the pots before firing. 
The appearance of the overhanging rim suggests that it is simply a 
cylindrical collar superimposed upon a flaring rim of the third type of 
pot form; only one of the fragmentary pots found here, however, appears 
to show evidence of this having been done. In this case the collar was 
added to the thinned, upper edge of the neck of the unfinished pot with 
a lap weld; it is possible that many collars were similarly added. 
The margin was probably modelled into shape after the collar had 
been added. One fragment (Cat. No. VIII-F-106626) shows how an 
irregular, unfinished top was given a squared margin, by folding a thin 
slab of clay over the unfinished edge and welding its thinned-out edges 
to the rough outside and inside surfaces of the pot. Another method of 
finishing off the top of the rim was to lute a thin strip of clay to the 
margin. Although all of the rims were perhaps not so treated it is certain 
that twenty-two pots had the lower angle of the more or less pointed, 
projecting lips added by luting. This is suggested. by the. presence of a 
small crack in the thickest part of the lip; the junction having been insuf- 
ficiently welded it was cracked in the firing. 
The outside surface of the pots was malleated either by scarifying 
or by beating with a paddle. 
