with the finger nail.
This vase was found in Franklin County, Alabama, near the Mississippi
line.

[Illustration: FIG. 462.--Painted design.]

RESUME.

Attention has been called to the great numbers of pieces of
earthenware recovered from the mounds and graves of the middle
province of the Mississippi Valley. In certain districts--as remarked
by one of our collectors--we have but to dig to fill museums. Such
districts must have been occupied for a long period by a numerous
people who recognized the claims of the dead upon their worldly
treasures. The burial grounds of many other sections of the American
continent are correspondingly rich in ceramic remains.

The vessels were not to any extent cinerary, and probably not even
mortuary in the sense of having been constructed especially for
inhumation with the dead. They were receptacles for food, drink,
paint, and the like, placed in the grave along with other possessions
of the departed in obedience to the demands of an almost universal
custom.

The material employed in manufacture embraced clay in all grades of
refinement, from coarse loamy earths to the refined slips used in
surface finish. The tempering materials--used in greater or
lesser quantity according to the character of the vessel to be
made--consisted of shell, sand, and potsherds reduced to various
degrees of pulverulence.

The stage of the art represented by this ware is one of hand building
purely. No lathe or other revolving device was known, although
varieties of improvised molds--baskets, gourds, and the like, such
as are known to nearly all pottery-making peoples--were frequently
employed.

The highest degree of finish known was attained by the application
of a slip or wash of fine clay which was given a good degree of
mechanical polish by means of a smooth implement held in the hand.
Ornament was produced by both flat and plastic methods. The colors
used in painting were white, black, and red earths. The plastic
subjects were incised, stamped, relieved, and modeled in the round.

The period was one of open-air baking, a moderate degree of hardness
being secured. The texture was porous and the vessels were without
resonance. The paste exhibits two distinct varieties of color which
may be described roughly as light and dark. A certain range of dark
hues--blacks, browns, and grays--were probably produced by "smother
baking." Another set of colors embracing light reddish and yellowish
grays