would form a gay, laughing party in the sunlight. When the work is dry the painting and decorating are done by means of a little, long, string-like brush made of yucca fibre. This brush is like a piece of coarse twine, about three inches long, without a handle, very limber, and apparently entirely inadequate, yet they easily accomplished all they desired to do with it. In order to turn the work while in process of manufacture, and not injure it or destroy its shape, it is generally built upon a wicker tray. In this way it can be readily swung round and round, as the potter pays out the clay rope and adjusts it in place. This is the nearest approach to the potter’s wheel that seems ever to have been known on the American continent. While many shapes are based on some form in basketry, or wood, or horn, or shell, or bark, a great many are pure inventions, the result of fancy or inclination. In preparing the clay, sand or pulverised potsherds were mixed with it to temper it and prevent cracking. This was sometimes so coarse and abundant in the old pottery that in the fragments picked up one can frequently see large grains of sand. [Illustration: MODELLING AN OLLA AT HANO The potter was not aware of being photographed From photo by the author, 1884 ] [Illustration: CLAY NUCLEUS] [Illustration: METHOD OF BUILDING UP COIL] All pottery of primitive races belongs to the class known as _soft_ pottery, as distinguished from what we call stoneware or _hard_ pottery in its different forms. The Amerinds were no exception, and all their pottery is soft unglazed ware.[82] The reason for this lies in the fact that the making of hard pottery requires not only an extensive knowledge of the properties of clay, but, what is more, a temperature for firing of about 4000° Fahrenheit,—a temperature which can be obtained only in a furnace or retort, of which Amerinds were apparently ignorant, their pottery being burned, in historic and prehistoric times, in the open air. The common modern method among the Pueblos is to burn with sheep dung, but they are said to have used in ancient times deadwood, common wood, and coal. The method was usually the same in all cases; the ware was piled up and then covered with the fuel in such a manner that there would be as little as possible direct contact. They also sometimes baked the ware in hot ashes with a fire above, and sometimes they dug a pit which they lined with the fuel. A rich shiny black ware was obtained in some localities by allowing the ware to come in contact with the fuel and, at a certain period in the burning, smothering the fire. This produced an apparent glaze as well, an effect obtained also by rubbing and polishing before the firing. But there is no true glazing in any Amerind ware, at least not north of Mexico. Even had they known the process they would have been baffled in attempting to put it in practice, for glazing requires a temperature of at least