Vol. VII, No. 4 
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK 
August 1905 
JhE summer days are upon us and 
the editor is wondering if the 
Keramic Studio has made a 
mistake to set any problems for 
competition for the vacation 
months. The work has certainly 
fallen off these last two months and 
if the next is not better, the com- 
petitions as well as the competi- 
tors will take a vacation next sum- 
mer. With such a wealth of material as was given for the 
fish design in Keramic Studio, it seems strange that nothing 
better was offered, even by our old and strong workers. 
No design Avas considered worthy of first prize, and no 
mentions were awarded. The second prize was awarded 
to Miss Minna Meinke of Long Island. (By mistake this 
design on page 8i was printed as first prize.) Third prize 
to Miss Mary Overbeck, of Cambridge City, Indiana. 
The problems for the Christmas competition will be 
as follows: 
Design for a punch bowl, motif to be chosen by de- 
signer. Drawing in black and white, wash or pen and ink 
to be full size, color drawing to be not more than ten inches 
in diameter as it will be reproduced in color, and not more 
than five colors to be used, three or four colors preferred. 
First prize, $15.00; Second prize, $10.00. 
Design for punch cup, to go with bowl but not neces- 
sarily the same arrangement of design. First prize, $5.00; 
Second prize, $3.00. 
r ¥' 
CLUB NOTE 
Miss Dibble writes to us that it was erroneously stated 
in our Club Notes in July number that at the Portland 
Exposition space had, for the first time, been given to a 
ceramic club in the Fine Arts Building. The Atlan Club 
of Chicago were honored with an invitation to exhibit in 
the Fine Arts Building at the St. Louis Exposition, with- 
out expense to them of any kind for case, space, and placing, 
and they had a very fine and well placed exhibit there. 
EARLY INDIAN POTTERY. 
C. H. Robinson 
ETHNOLOGISTS divide mankind into four classes: 
savage, barbarous, civilized and enlightened. In 
this division they consider the making and use of pottery 
to be the first stage above savagery, as indicating more 
fixed habitations and a commencement of the individual 
ownership of property. 
There are but few tribes now below the rank of barbar- 
ous as guaged by this rule, for nearly all the so-cahed primi- 
tive tribes have advanced to the manufacture and use of 
pottery. 
In the investigation of prehistoric ruins in all parts of 
the world, the grade of pottery found has been a sure index 
to the progress which had been made in other domestic arts. 
Some scientists conjecture that the potter's art was 
originally discovered by accident. They think that baskets 
were first made, and that desiring to boil meat or other food, 
the savage coated the outside of his basket with clay and 
set to simmer over a slow fire. After being thus used 
several times, the hardened clay dropped off retaining its 
shape, and an intehigent savage concluded the intervention 
of the basket was wholly unnecessary and clay formed to 
the proper shape and submitted to the action of fire would 
answer the purpose equally well. If this be true, the dis- 
covery of pottery, like that of many other things in the path 
of progress, was accidental. 
When the primitive inhabitants of Avhat is now the 
United States, first came in contact with the whites, all 
were potters, but those inhabiting the southwestern part 
who were more nearly in contact with the Aztecs of Mexico, 
were the more expert in this art. 
In other portions of this country, the best potter}' was 
manufactured by the tribes which inhabited the localities 
in which mounds exist, and these peoples or tribes are 
commonly knoAvn as "Mound-builders." Their vessels of 
baked clay were far superior in material, manufacture and 
artistic form, to those which have been found in other 
localities. 
In the moundless regions, pottery is seldom found 
except in a fragmentary condition near the surface or upon 
old village sites and its imperfection is very evident from 
the coarse and porous character and the imperfect firing, 
but in the excavations of mounds whole vessels are not 
infrequently found, which, for material, artistic form and 
complete firing, are scarcely inferior to the pottery of 
civilized peoples. 
The illustration in this article is from a photograph 
of one of the vessels in the writer's collection, which was 
found in an Iowa burial mound. The picture is about one 
half the actual size of the vessel, which is made of fine clay 
well worked and tempered with pulverized shells. The 
ornamentation was made by crimping the edges, apparently 
with the thumb nail and by scoring in conventional lines 
and dotting with a sharp implement while soft. 
Though unglazed it is well fired and is hard and durable. 
So perfect is the artistic form that it is difficult for the eye 
to detect the slightest variation from a true outline. 
In the writer's collection are fragments which, from 
the arcs of the circles, must have been as large as wash-tubs, 
and they were so well made and thoroughly fired, that they 
were no doubt used for boiling food or making maple sugar. 
The smaller vessels were evidently formed by hand and 
with rude implements from lumps or masses of prepared 
clay, but the corrugations on the larger fragments clearly 
indicate that the method of manufacture employed was that 
of coiling. 
In the writer's collection are some hundreds of frag- 
ments from Avidely separated localities, which vary greatly 
in material, firing and ornamentation. In some the orna- 
mentation is by incised lines, evidently conventional, others 
indicate that a form or die with the figure in relief was used 
upon the soft vessel, while from others it would appear that 
