the Iroquois, and yet possess hardly any proficiency in any art, while others, like the Navajos, with scarcely any political development, possess high artistic skill in weaving and metal-working, but none in pottery. Great in war and government the Iroquois certainly were, but they had not reached the border line of artistic development. Neither weavers, potters, nor builders were they (though Bandelier maintains that their long-house was as difficult of construction as any house the Pueblos build), and, outside of the idea of the league, their government was not much superior to that of the Pueblos. Their pottery, limited in quantity, was very inferior to that of many other Amerinds. It is probable that following the line of race development they would eventually have produced excellent ware, but the iron pot made its appearance and progress in pottery was doomed. On the North-west coast little or no pottery is found. Quality and quantity increase as we approach Yucatan. [Illustration: MᶜCLOUD RIVER BASKET, CALIFORNIA] Tribes with unfavourable environment would find it next to impossible to acquire skill in pottery. The Eskimo, with a temperature for the greater part of the year near or below freezing, and a scarcity of fuel, would find moulding forms out of wet clay about the last occupation to think of. The Eskimo, therefore, made almost nothing of clay except occasionally a lamp.[79] The Kutchins of the Yukon country make pots and cups of clay, but in the main the Far Northern people rely on basketry, soapstone, and on metallic vessels obtained from the whites. Nor is the North land entirely favourable to basketry, yet the Aleut basket-work is exceedingly fine in texture, some of their productions being almost a cloth. This is specially true of baskets made on the island of Attu of the Aleutian chain. These are usually cylindrical, sometimes fitted with a cover of the same material. So soft and pliable are they that they can barely sustain an upright position. This fine texture is a characteristic of all the basketry of the North-west coast, but there is not much variety in form and the artistic shapes so common with the Amerinds southward of the Columbia are absent. The decorations are similar to those of other Amerinds and are woven in with quills, grasses, feathers, bits of silk, or worsteds, appropriately coloured. In the interior of the Northern lands, the Kniks and others make a substitute for baskets out of thin boards steamed and bent around a flat bottom piece which fits into a groove in the board. It is fastened in place with split roots or skin thongs. Among the Eskimo sealskin cups and buckets are used, and some made of whalebone, but they also make a basket out of coiled grasses, which is artistic and has a variety of interesting forms. East of Point Barrow baskets are rare. Birchbark vessels of various kinds were used by many tribes as substitutes for baskets, and doubtless some forms in pottery