148 
RERAMIC STUDIO 
stone, carved, showing a prodigious anioiuit of labor. The 
mound-builders were evidently nnicli more civilized and sidlful 
than the eastern tribes. 
The potterj': of the Indians of the Far West may he di- 
vided into three styles: 
1 . The coil work made by coiling the soft clay like a rope 
around the vessel of wicker or a gourd. The surface was often 
indented with thumb marks, or covered with some fabric which 
woidd leave an imprint on the soft clay. 
2. A ware painted red. 
3. A whitish ware coated with clay and painted in de- 
signs of various colors. 
Vessels of the first class were usually large urns designed 
to hold meal or the ashes of the dead. It is evident that the 
early Indians cremated then dead, because of the ashes found 
in these urns and also because human remains have not been 
found as might have been expected if the dead had been buried. 
The second class, the vessels ])ainted red, were of a more 
dm-able qualitj^ and were often burnished with smooth pebbles 
and painted with a design in Islack. 
The third variety is far more common and is made of fine 
clay mixed with pounded shells or stones, and is superior to 
any ware produced by the native Indians. It is usually cov- 
ered with a wash, polished and decorated, the figures being 
usually black, red, and yellow. The Pueblo Indians excelled 
in this pottery. They made mugs, pitchers, jars, urns, dippers, 
bottles, bowls, etc. Their mugs often had double handles. 
The interior of the bowls of the dippers were, in many instances, 
painted in elaborate designs. There were some combinations 
of the different styles, as a bowl of coil design might have an 
interior polished surface painted in geometrical pattern. 
The Indian pottery may be divided into three classes, the 
useful, the aesthetic, and the grotesque; the useful, consisting 
of articles made for utility alone, with no attempt at decoration; 
the aesthetic often coming up to standards of beauty and art, as 
exempHfied in the best work of the Pueblo Indians, but more 
especially in the product of the Indians of Central America 
(who were far more cultured than any other class of American 
Indian.#^ ■"ah'd the grotesque, practiced to some extent by the 
Indians of all ages, but more bj)- the Indians of the present dav 
perhaps than at any other period. As the art of the white 
man is more or less imiaregnated with legend and mythology, 
so the ornamentation of the Indian vessels was often sj'mbolical, 
and though of no meaning to our eyes, it was of deep signifi- 
cance to the Indian. 
Thus we find at the discovery of America that the Indians 
varied greatly in civilization. While the Indians of the East 
were making onljr the rudest and most necessary articles, 
many of the Indian tribes of the West were producing potter\- 
of an artistic and elaborate type. Art has been slowly but 
surely developing in the United States since Europeans first 
took up their habitation here, but the American Indian is 
practically where we found him five hundred years ago. The 
modern Indian continues to make pottery after the ancient 
methods, perhaps a little more elaborate in decoration, but 
with less regard to the protection of the ware. — Boston Star. 
Andrew Carnegie is aljout to erect technical schools, among 
which will be a school of ceramics. 
■f ^ 
SHOP NOTE 
The Ceramic Gold Co. of Brooklyn are putting up their 
gold in a porcelain slab with a depression to hold the gold. It 
seems a \ery good arrangement. 
MATT GLAZES AT LOW TEMPERATURES 
Charles F. Binns 
IN a previous paper on matt glazes the temperature chosen 
was that at which the body itself could be fired. The 
minimum point for this purpose with ordinary potters' mater- 
ials, cannot be below cone I and even this can only be accom- 
plished with a very careful selection of clays. It often happens 
however, that natural clays are used in studios, clays which 
Inirn to a red color and such as are commonly used for brick 
making. There is no possible objection to the use of these 
clays, in fact there is every reason wdiy such use should be 
encouraged. They are easily available, cheap and smooth to 
work. On the other hand there are not many such clays 
which will stand cone 1 heat. They will melt and collapse 
before this is reached. Consequently it becomes a matter of 
importance for those who are interested in the use of natura 
clays to be able to glaze their pottery at a fire which will not 
damage the ware itself. 
The great majority of common briclc-clays will hxxra to a 
nearly vitrified body at heats ranging from cone 06 to cone 04 
(1886° to 1958° Fahr.) and the glazes given for cone i will not 
fuse at these temperatures. 
Perhaps some will remark, upon reading the previous 
sentence, that as we are talking about matt glazes the question 
of fusion is not important, but this is an error. It was demon- 
strated by the writer of this paper, early in 1903, that matt 
glazes are not dull by reason of infusibility but by virtue of a 
special chemical composition. If it were a question of produc- 
ing an unfused glaze nothing would be easier, and the lower the 
temperature the better, but the problem is to compose a glaze 
which shall, at one and the same time, flow at a low fire and 
carry enougli of the deadening materials to produce a texture. 
The chemical composition of matt glazes is much the same at 
whatever heat they are to be burned. The difference between 
a glaze at cone 04 and one at cone 2 is not the amount of flux 
which it contains but the kind of flux. The matt quality is 
produced by the alumina which is contained in feldspar or 
Ivaolin. The amount of alumina can only var3' within very 
narrow limits if a good texture is to be secured, but unless the 
right flux or base be used for each temperature, the glaze will 
fail to combine and flow at the low fire, or will degenerate into 
a leathery mass at the high. 
Two glazes are here given which will produce good matt 
surfaces at the melting point of cone 04 or about the heat of an 
ordinary brick kiln: 
No. 10 — White lead 50 No. 11- 
Whiting 9 
Feldspar 27 
Kaolin 14 
Each of these glazes will produce its own effect upon the 
coloring oxides so that they cannot be exchanged each for each. 
Two are given because all fires are not alike. Even if the same 
cone is used and the fire is just that which causes it to bend 
there is still a difference. Two important factors are to be 
takeii into consideration in kiln firing, the first is time, the 
second, quality. If one bums one's own kilns the time is, 
usuallj', short. Burning a kiln specially for pottery consumes 
from six to eighteen hours but it is not everj- artist potter who 
owns a kiln. Sometimes one must depend upon a neighboring 
kiln where brick or tile are burned. These kilns take from 
eight to fourteen days to fire and the behaviour of the ware 
mider such treatment must be radicaflv dift'erent from what it 
-White lead 
34 
Whiting 
14 
Kaolin 
8 
Feldspar 
37 
Flint 
7 
