ave been cut with a sharp point in the dry clay.

[Illustration: FIG. 460.--Bowl: Alabama.--1/3.]

Bottle-shaped vases are not found to any great extent outside of
the Mississippi Valley, and are quite rare in Alabama, Georgia, and
Florida.

[Illustration: FIG. 461.--Bottle: Mississippi.--1/3.]

The piece illustrated in Fig. 461 is from Mississippi, and in most
respects is identical with the ware of the Gulf Province. The paste
is silicious, fine-grained, and quite hard. The color is slightly
ferruginous and clouded with fire stains from the baking. The body is
ornamented with the engraved figure of a bird apparently intended
for an eagle. The head, with its notched and strongly curved beak and
conventionalized crest, occupies one side. The wings may be seen at
the right and left, while the tail appears on the side opposite the
head. The flattened base of the vessel occupies the place of the body.
The lines have been scratched with a sharp point in the hardened
clay. Certain spaces in the plumes, wings, and tail are filled in with
reticulated lines.

[Illustration: FIG. 462.--Bottle: Alabama.--1/3.]

The bottle presented in Fig. 462 is embellished with a rather
remarkable design in color. The material is fine grained and without
admixture of shell. The color of the paste is a pale, salmon gray. The
surface is coated with a thick slip or enamel of whitish clay, very
fine grained and smooth; upon this the design was painted, not in the
thick earthy color employed farther north, but in what appears to be
a dark purplish-gray stain. The design upon the body is wholly unlike
anything yet described. It is developed in the light ground tint by
filling in the interstices with the dark color. The peculiar character
of this design inclines me to the view that it probably had an
ideographic origin, although possibly treated here as pure decoration.
The open hand is sometimes seen, in both the decorative and the
symbolic work of the Gulf coast tribes, and is not unknown elsewhere.
The figures alternating with the hands are suggestive of a highly
conventionalized face, the eyes being indicated by the volutes and the
mouth and teeth by the lower part of the figure, as will be seen in
the fully projected design, Fig. 463. The neck has two indistinct
bands of triangular dentate figures apparently painted in the dark
color. The bottom is flattish and without the coating of light clay.
Both paste and slip can be readily scratched