So ancient is the potter's art that it may be said to have begun with the beginnings of man. A belief exists still in Silesia that there is a mountain out of which cups and jugs spring spontaneously, as the mushrooms shoot from the moist soil of the plains. Interwoven, then, as pottery is with the history of the race, having relations daily and hourly with man's universal and greatest vocation--the preparation of the food which supports and continues _life_--it has had and will have an interest as vital as it is wide-spread. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Vase of the Stone Age._] [Illustration: FIG. 3.--_Vase of the Bronze Age._] MAN A COOKING ANIMAL.--Man is the only cooking animal, so far as I know. It is easy to believe that archaic man, when he began to evolve from the animal state, at once began to invent, and that, after he had discovered the uses of fire, the first need was of vessels which could be used upon the fire to seethe and boil. And what do we find? THE REINDEER AGE--THE STONE AGE.--Of prehistoric times, when the reindeer roved free over Europe, even to the shores of the Mediterranean, in the Stone age, even when man lived in caves and was only able to fashion things with stones, a few pots have been found, showing how early his wants led him to fashion things of clay. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Vase of the Bronze Age._] The LACUSTRINE DWELLINGS of the Stone Age have given up a few traces of men. The remains of lake-dwellers have been found mostly in Switzerland, but somewhat in Ireland and Scotland. These reveal a people who built their huts for safety upon piles or upon fascines anchored in the small lakes. A variety of interesting things, consisting of spear-heads, knives, hatchets, etc., have been found, some of flint, some of bone, and some of bronze. Among these, which pertain to our subject, are a few pots of clay, which have survived the gnawing tooth of Time. [Illustration: FIG. 5.--_Bronze Age._] In Figs. 1 and 2 are to be seen two of these. They are coarse and clumsy, and are of blackish-gray clay, hardened in the sun or in an insufficient fire. They are not turned upon a wheel, but show marks of the fingers impressed in the soft clay. Yet we cannot but be struck with the faint attempt at decoration to be seen on the foot of one of them, even in that era of savageness. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--_Bronze Age._] [Illustration: FIG. 7.--_Bronze Age._] The BRONZE AGE yields up pottery which does not yet show the invention of the potter's wheel. The work is still moulded by the hand, but the clay is better, and the forms begin to show clear indications of a sense of proportion and a considerable degree of choice. The shapes are in greater variety, and some of them certainly are good. Of the five examples (Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) none are very bad, and two (Figs. 3 and 4), if not three, are excellent. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--_Peruvian._] [Illustration: FIG. 9.--_Peruvian._]