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  porcelain.
  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  ordinary
  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  impressed
  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  deposits
  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  decorated, ­
  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  examples, ­
  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.