The fifth class embraces all articles of pottery, abundant throughout the whole extent of the state, but especially so on the lake islands, where the natives actually dig them from the earth to supply their present needs. None of the localities which have yielded other relics is without its deposit of earthen ware, either whole or in fragments. The fact that vessels unearthed by the natives, when unbroken, are wholly uninjured by their long rest under a damp tropical soil, indicates their excellence in material and construction. It is not indeed probable that in material or methods of manufacture the ancient differed essentially from the modern pottery; but in skill and taste the former was unquestionably far superior. Mr Squier pronounces the work equal to the best specimens of the Mexican and Peruvian potters. He finds no evidence of the use of the wheel; Mr Boyle, however, thinks it was employed, but rarely. The clay varies from brown to black, and the glazing, often sufficiently thick to be chipped off with a knife, is usually of a whitish or yellowish hue. The colors with which most articles are painted are both brilliant and durable, red being a favorite. In some cases the paint seems to have penetrated the substance of the pottery, as if applied before the clay was dry. The figures of the cut illustrate the two most common forms of the cinerary, or burial, urns, both from Ometepec, the former sketched by Mr Boyle and the latter by Mr Squier. The urns contain a black sticky earth supposed to represent traces of burned flesh, and often unburned bones, skull, or teeth, together with a collection of the smaller relics which have been described. The bones of animals, deer-horns, and boar-tusks, and bone implements rarely or never occur. Earthen basins of different material and color from the urns are often--always in the Chontal graves--found inverted one over another to close the mouth. The burial vases are sometimes thirty-six inches long by twenty inches high, painted usually on the outside with alternate streaks of black and scarlet, while serpents or other ornaments are frequently relieved on the surface. One or two handles are in most cases attached to each. Mr Squier believes a human skull to have been the model of the urns. Five of them at Libertad are noticed as lying uniformly east and west. It appears evident that many of the articles found in or about the graves had no connection with burial rites, some of them having undoubtedly been buried to keep them from the hands of the Spaniards. The figures of the cuts, from Mr Boyle, show two forms of vessels which are frequently repeated among an infinite variety of other shapes. The tripod vase with hollow legs is a common form, of which Fig. 1 is a fine specimen from Ometepec, five and three fourths inches high, and six inches in diameter, with a different face on each leg. Fig. 2 is a bowl from Zapatero which occurs in great numbers, of uniform shape and decoration, but of