6 
EE VIEWS. 
are impressions of the finger-nail, or of a cord wonnd round the 
soft clay. 
Very different was the condition of American Art. Dr. Wilson 
has well pointed out, that, as regards Europe, “ in no single case is 
“ any attempt made to imitate leaf or flower, bird, beast, or any 
“ simple natural object; and when, in the bronze work of the later 
“ Iron period, imitative forms at length appear, they are chiefly the 
“ snake and dragon shapes and patterns, borrowed seemingly by Celtic 
“ and Teutonic wanderers, with the wild fancies of their mythology, 
“ from the far Eastern cradle-land of their birth.” This rule, how¬ 
ever general, is not quite without exceptions ; witness the bronze knife, 
fig. 166, in the Catalogue of the Copenhagen Museum. This interest¬ 
ing specimen has for a handle the figure of a man, which, however, is 
but a poor specimen of art. Moreover, some doubt may possibly be 
entertained about the age of this knife: the tip is broken off, but the 
blade, as far as it goes, is quite straight in the back,—a form which, 
though general in the Iron age, is seldom, if ever, found in knives 
of the Bronze age, in which the back part is always more or less 
curved.* 
But I must not suffer myself to be led into a digression on 
Ancient Art, especially as M. Morlot has been specially devoting 
himself to this study, and, in his forthcoming work on the Antiquities 
of Mecldenbourg, will, I hope, throw much light on the subject. 
“ Among the North American mound-builders the art of pottery 
“ attained to a considerable degree of perfection.” Some vases, indeed, 
are said to rival, “ in elegance of model, delicacy and finish,” the best 
Peruvian specimens. The material used is a fine clay: in the more 
delicate specimens, pure; in the coarser ones, mixed with pounded 
quartz. The art of glazing and the use of the potter’s wheel appear 
not to have been known, though that “ simple approximation to a 
potter’s wheel may have existed,” which consists of u a stick of wood 
“ grasped in the hand by the middle, and turned round inside a wall 
“ of clay formed by the other hand or by another workman.” f 
Among the most characteristic specimens of ancient American pot¬ 
tery are the Pipes. Some of these are simple bowls, smaller indeed, but 
otherwise not unlike a common everyday pipe, from which they differ 
however in having generally no stem, the mouth having apparently 
been applied direct to the bowl. Others are highly ornamented, and 
many are spirited representations of monsters or of animals, such as 
the beaver, otter, wild cat, elk, bear, wolf, panther, raccoon, opossum, 
squirrel, manatee, eagle, hawk, heron, owl, buzzard, raven, swallow, 
parroquet, duck, grouse, and many others. The most interesting of 
* I except, of course, the small razor-knives, which (Copenhagen Catalogue, 
Nos. 171 to 175) have a totally different form. These, moreover, from the character 
of their ornamentation, belong probably to the close of the Bronze age, if not to 
that of Iron. 
1 Squier and Davis, 1. c. p. 195. 
