“As a rule, the incised designs are more highly conventional than the plastic, the eagle and the serpent being the only incised forms, so far as has been observed, realistically treated; but it was possible to recognize others through their association with the modeled forms. In vessels furnished with the head of a bird in relief, for example, the same kind of incised figures were generally found around the vessel, and these are recognized as being more or less fully conventionalized representations of wings. The same is true of the fish and its gills, fins, and tail; of the serpent and its spots and rattles, and of the frog and its legs. The relieved figures, realistically treated, become thus a key to the formal incised designs, enabling us to identify them when separately used. It will be seen, however, that since all forms shade off into the purely geometric, there comes a stage when all must be practically alike; and in independent positions, since we have no key, we fail to distinguish them, and can only say that whatever they represented to the potter they cannot be to us more than mere suggestions of the life idea. To the native potter the life concept was probably an essential association with every vessel.” [Illustration: FIG. 686. (S. 1–4.) Double jar from the Chaco Group. Found in a lower room in Pueblo Bonito. ] All writers on pottery observe a great difference between the ware of the North and that of the South. Professor Holmes points to this in more than one place in his writings, and he asks this question: “Is it due to differences in race? Were the Southern tribes as a body more highly endowed than the Northern, or did the currents of migration, representing distinct centres of culture, come from opposite quarters to meet along this line. Or does the difference result from the unlike environments of the two sections, the one fertile and salubrious, encouraging progress in art, and the other rigorous and exacting, checking tendencies in that direction? Or does the weakening art impulse indicate increasing distance from the great art centres in the far South, in Mexico, and Yucatan?” [Illustration: FIG. 687. (S. 1–8.) A beautiful collection of ceramics from cliff-houses in Utah and New Mexico. M. C. Long’s collection, Kansas City, Missouri. ] [Illustration: FIG. 688. (_S. indicated._) _A jar of “coiled ware,” from a cliff-house in New Mexico. Collection of M. C. Long, Kansas City, Missouri._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 689. (S. 1–3.) Stones used in smoothing pottery, kneading clay, etc. ]