ve features, though not essential to the utensil, are
nevertheless inseparable parts of it, and are cast or unconsciously
copied by a very primitive people when similar articles are artificially
produced in plastic material. In this way a utensil may acquire
ornamental characters long before the workman has learned to take
pleasure in such details or has conceived an idea beyond that of simple
utility. This may be called unconscious embellishment. In this
fortuitous fashion a ribbed variety of fruit shell would give rise to a
ribbed vessel in clay; one covered with spines would suggest a noded
vessel, etc. When taste came to be exercised upon such objects these
features would be retained and copied for the pleasure they afforded.

[Illustration: _a._--Shell vessel. _b._--Copy in clay. FIG. 475.--Scroll
derived from the spire of a conch shell.]

Passing by the many simple elements of decoration that by this
unconscious process could be derived from such sources, let me give a
single example by which it will be seen that not only elementary forms
but even so highly constituted an ornament as the scroll may have been
brought thus naturally into the realm of decorative art. The sea-shell
has always been intimately associated with the arts that utilize clay
and abounds in suggestions of embellishment. The _Busycon_ was almost
universally employed as a vessel by the tribes of the Atlantic drainage
of North America. Usually it was trimmed down and excavated until only
about three-fourths of the outer wall of the shell remained. At one end
was the long spike-like base which served as a handle, and at the other
the flat conical apex, with its very pronounced spiral line or ridge
expanding from the center to the circumference, as seen in Fig. 475 _a_.
This vessel was often copied in clay, as many good examples now in our
museums testify. The notable feature is that the shell has been copied
literally, the spiral appearing in its proper place. A specimen is
illustrated in Fig. 475 _b_ which, although simple and highly
conventionalized, still retains the spiral figure.

[Illustration: _a_ _b_ _c_ FIG. 476.--Possible derivation of the
current scroll.]

In another example we have four of the noded apexes placed about the rim
of the vessel, as shown in Fig. 476_a_, the conception being that of
four conch shells united in one vessel, the bases being turned inward
and the apexes outward. Now it is only necessary to suppose the additi