CERAMIC AKTS—GENERAL SURVEY. 
15 
grotesque daubs which liave so long seenjed inseparable from 
all low-priced decorated wäre. 
Photography also is uow tributary to the decoration of por- 
celain. The beautiful examples exhibited by Julius Leith, of 
Vienna, rnay here be special ly .referred to. A series of plates 
were ornamented by photographs, apparently from life, as 
perfect as upon paper, and seemingly so well fixed on or 
under the glaze as not to be liable to injury by use. When 
we think upon wliat has been accomplished by the Woodwprth 
process of relief priuting from photographs, it seems more 
than probable that transfers in indelible colors of such pictures 
may be made upon porcelain at no greater cost than for ordi- 
nary erude engravings. All that appears to be necessary is 
to have a very fine metallic pigment and a surface sufSciently 
smooth to. receive the most delicate tilins when transferred 
from the relief plate to a suitable paper, which can be im- 
pressed upon the porcelain, and then removed with water and 
friction, leaving the ink adhering to the wäre, exactly as is 
now practised with copperplate engraviugs. 
PoTTERY IN THE UNITED STATES.' 
For the manufacture of pottery in the United States there 
is no lack of the best ifiaterials. Not only are extensive de- 
posits of clay already kuowu and worked, but it is probable 
that when attention is more generally given to the subject, 
other deposits will be brought to light. 
The art in America is of extreme antiquity amongst the 
aboriginal tribes,.especially in Mexico, Central America, and 
in the Western part of the United States. At the Delaware 
Water Gap specimens of cups, of good form and rudely dec 
orated, have been washed out, with stoue implements.* The 
clay inniges of Mexico and the remarkable pottery of Peru 
are well knowu. It is important to note that in these exam 
ples, as in the ancient pottery of Arizona and Mexico, great 
attention was given to decoration. 
In the early attempts at the manufacture of porcelain in 
* The vessels found in the ancient mounds of the Mississippi Valley are considered 
by Professor Cox to be formed of a calcareous cement, and not of bumed clay. 
They are not, therefore, pottery in tlie usual scnse of the Word.