Yet the idea of hardening any clayey paste by means of the action of fire is so very simple, that we are not of opinion that pottery which had merely been baked in the sun was ever made use of to any great extent, even among primitive man. Mere chance, or the most casual observation, might have taught our earliest forefathers that a morsel of clay placed near a fire-hearth became hardened and altogether impenetrable to water, that is, that it formed a perfect specimen of pottery. Yet the art, though ancient, has not been universally found among mankind. Ere long, experience must have taught men certain improvements in the manufacture of pottery. Sand was added to the clay, so as to render it less subject to "flying" on its first meeting the heat of the fire; next, dried straw was mixed with the clay in order to give it more coherence. In this way those rough vessels were produced, which were, of course, moulded with the hand, and still bear the imprints of the workman's fingers. They were only half-baked, on account of the slight intensity of heat in the furnace which they were then obliged to make use of, which was nothing more than a wood fire, burning in the open air, on a stone hearth. From these data we give a representation (fig. 17) of the _workshop of the earliest potter_. [Illustration: Fig. 17.--The First Potter.] In the gravel pits in the neighbourhood of Amiens we meet with small globular bodies with a hole through the middle, which are, indeed, nothing but fossil shells found in the white chalk (fig. 18). It is probable that these stony beads were used to adorn the men contemporary with the diluvial period. The natural holes which existed in them enabled them to be threaded as bracelets or necklaces. This, at least, was the opinion of Dr. Rigollot; and it was founded on the fact that he had often found small heaps of these delicate little balls collected together in the same spot, as if an inundation had drifted them into the bed of the river without breaking the bond which held them together. [Illustration: Fig. 18.--Fossil Shells used as Ornaments, and found in the Gravel at Amiens.] The necklaces, which men and women had already begun to wear during the epoch of the great bear and the mammoth, were the first outbreak of the sentiment of adornment, a feeling so natural to the human species. The way in which these necklaces were put together is, however, exactly similar to that which we meet with during the present day among savage tribes--a thread on which a few shells were strung, which was passed round the neck.