ess ceramic collections
of the United States National Museum by Mr. William H. Holmes. This
author and artist will approach his task from a standpoint differing
from mine, reaching thereby, it may be, conclusions at variance with
the foregoing; but by means of his wealth of material and illustration
students will have opportunity of passing a judgment upon the merits
of not only his work, but of my own.

[Illustration: FIG. 561.--Rectangular type of earthen vessel.]

In conclusion, let me very briefly refer to two distinctive American
types of pottery, unconnected with the Southwestern, which,
considered in conjunction with those of the latter region, seem to
me to indicate that the ceramic art has had independent centers of
origin in America. For the sake of convenience, I may name these types
the rectangular (see Fig. 561) or Iroquois, and the bisymmetrical or
kidney-shaped (see Fig. 562), of Nicaragua. The one is almost constant
in the lake regions of the United States, the other equally constant
in sections of Central America. In collections gathered from any tribe
of our Algonquin or Iroquois Indians, one may observe vessels of the
tough birch- or linden-bark, some of which are spherical or
hemispherical. To produce this form of utensil from a single piece of
bark, it is necessary to cut pieces out of the margin and fold it.
Each fold, when stitched together in the shaping of the vessel, forms
a corner at the upper part. (See Fig. 563.) These corners and the
borders which they form are decorated with short lines and
combinations of lines, composed of coarse embroideries with dyed
porcupine quills. (See Fig. 564) May not the bark vessel have given
rise to the rectangular type of pottery and its quill ornamentation to
the incised straight-line decorations? (Compare Fig. 561.)

[Illustration: FIG. 562.--Kidney-shaped vessel, Nicaragua.]

[Illustration: FIG. 563.--Iroquois bark-vessel.]

So, too, in the unsymmetrical urns of Central and Isthmean America,
which are characterized by the location of the aperture at the upper
part of one of the extremities and by streak-like decorations, we
have a decided suggestion of the animal paunch or bladder and of the
visible veins on its surface when distended.

[Illustration: FIG. 564.--Porcupine quill decoration.]

If these conjectures be accepted as approximately correct, even in
tendency, we may hope by a patient study of the ceramic remains of a
people, no matter where