A large collection of their pottery was shown at the United States Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and there is a sufficient and most interesting exhibit of it in the Peabody Museum at Harvard in Cambridge. In this collection, also, are to be found many examples of like unglazed pottery found in the Western mounds of the United States by Professors Shaler and Carr, who for some years have been engaged in researches in Kentucky and at other points in the West. Upon some examples of this American pottery (Figs. 8 to 15) are to be seen decorations in color, mostly red, black, and brown; and it would seem impossible that these colors should have lasted through so many centuries, if they were not fixed by fire, and therefore were mineral. [Illustration: FIG. 20.--_Pottery of Ancient Gaul._] The decorations, too, were somewhat varied, but in none which I have seen do they go beyond the elementary styles already mentioned. The production of idols and fantastic vases, animals and grotesques, must have been extensive, as so many of these have already been found; indicating that they must have been common in their day. Examples of this fantastic decoration and modeling are seen in Figs. 12 to 15--and in Fig. 14 is an approach to portraiture. In one (Fig. 15) is seen the double-bellied bottle, so much in use in China and Japan. The twin-bottles seen in Figs. 8 and 9 are good examples of a fancy which evidently pleased potter and people in those "good old Peruvian times." A most singular fact is mentioned by Demmin, that on one of their _casseroles_ the handle is clearly the phallus, symbol of life, found on Egyptian sculptures, and once worshiped. One curious fact is asserted by the French _savants_,[1] that there is abundant evidence to show that through a long succession of years, perhaps three thousand, the character of these American potteries grew less and less pure and simple, and more and more debased and vulgar; which one can well believe, when we see everywhere that whole nations, some of them calling themselves civilized, have gone the same road, downward from the good to the bad, and not upward toward the true and the beautiful. [Illustration: FIG. 21.--_Ancient Gaul._] The opening of the CESNOLA collections, at the New York Museum of Arts, shows us a vast number of early potteries which are as yet hardly classified or understood. Many of them bear marks of Assyrian or of Phoenician inspiration; and among them are rude vessels closely resembling those of Peru, and also many grotesque forms of vases and animals, such as mark the early attempts at Art in other nations. That collection should be examined by those who are interested in this subject. The hand-book published by the Museum is full of condensed information, and should be carefully preserved.