REPORT e- F TIIE EXECUTIVE -- COMMITTEE 6g nflteded, shall be used by the said board of regents for the complq/ion ano^quipment of such building. Sec^uon 3. This act shall take effect and be in force from aj^l after its pas^^e and publication This 13^11 had many warm friends in the legi^P&ture, and several elaborate arguments in its favor wer«nade before the senate committee on education, and the joint commit- tee on retrenchment anc\ reform. It evinced, however :or that the state unWersity ance of a costlyNcharadt trembling in the balance give way to the unnrer^ity’s pressing demands. The was, n^e vertheless ^satisfac s m urgent ufeed of other assist- and ttys library bill, after som^weeks, was allowed to her and perhaps mor esukr of the winter’s campaign to the Society , for progres distinctly made ; the needs of £ere canvassed thoroughly, towards a new building w the library in this dii^ft and found to be actefal, an 1 t^a only argument we heard advanced against a>lew strij?ture\t the present time was The committee is clearly of Df the Society advances with one of financial o^pediency.i the opinion th^r the cause each fresh campaign for a m w building, Vjd that the time is now nol^ar distant whenfits wishes in Ibis respect will be fully jnet by the legislature, and these priceless collec- tions given a permanent fire-proof home\worthy of then^and of the commonwealth in whose seWice the Society has zealously been engaged for upwards forty yjKrs. On behalf of the Executive Committee, Keuben G. Thwaites, Corresponding Secretary . 70 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. PREHISTORIC POTTERY -MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. BY JAMES DAVIE BUTLER, LL. D. [Address delivered at the Forty- First Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December 14, 1693.] t The State Historical Society of Wisconsin has just added to its museum two hundred and fifty-four specimens of prehistoric pottery. Its purchase of the Perkins col- lection of copper implements, in 1875, rendered the Society easily first in that department of antiques. Nor was it far behind in the line of Indian curiosities, -gathered by Gov- ernor Doty, and in relics of the stone age. The treasures of the ceramic art just now acquired form a new 7 departure, and round up the circle of its exhibits. They are also more suited to spectacular display than any species of aboriginal remains which it has hitherto shown. The new treasure- trove consists of two hundred and fifty-four pieces. They were all discovered in southeast- ern Missouri or northeastern Arkansas, in the Missouri counties of Scott, Mississippi, and New Madrid, and in Cross and Poinsett counties in Arkansas. All w T ere found in graves of a depth of from two to five feet. They had usually been placed one each side of a skull. In trans- atlantic cemeteries similar vessels, when buried with the dead, were often purposely broken, either as a token of grief or to make them valueless in the eyes of grave- robbers. But these Mississippi memorials were laid in the dust unbroken, and probably contained food or drink. In- deed, wdien exhumed, so many of them were still whole, that only about ten per cent of the number needed to have their fragments glued together. PREHISTORIC POTTERY. 71 The material is clay of various colors, but usually blackish. It is tempered with bits of shell, which often give it a pepper-and-salt appearance, the pepper predomi- nating. All the articles are hand-made— showing no trace of any wheel manufacture, but they are moulded in forms symmetrical and sometimes of classic elegance. None of this handiwork indicates acquaintance with the art of glaz- ing _ though some articles were rubbed smooth and red- dened with ochre, or veneered with a different variety of nT day. Not a few, in the shape of gourds or squashes, would " seem to have been modeled and shaped on these natural moulds. Others show the forms of mud turtles, fishes, and / various animals. A few imitate the human figure. One female, kneeling low, appears to be in an attitude and with a look of humble but earnest supplication. The variety in form, size, and fashion is very considerable. There are shallow or wide-mouthed vessels which we term pans, bowls, basins, porringers, and cups, according to size and shape. One, seemingly copied from a shell, has a nose like a butter-boat. Where the mouths are somewhat nar- rower, we may call them po,ts, some of which would hold a pailful. Some pots have projections on their rims, or a sort of ears, through which thongs would slip to suspend them over a fire or elsewhere. Others run up in the style of long- necked birds, which serve as handles. The articles which are most narrow-mouthed, it is natural to call bottles. Of these some are as big-bellied as demijohns, while others are so slender that their bodies have only two or three times the diameter of their necks. At the base the bottles are V^either flattened, or they stand on three legs. When a neck supports the head of an animal, the animal s mouth some- times forms the bottle mouth, but at other times that ori- ~^fice is in the back of the animal’s head. The ears of the human heads were pierced as if for ear-rings. It will be observed that many styles of archaic pottery have no representatives in the collection we have now ac- quired. The coil pattern, for instance, so common further south and east, has here no existence. In this variety, the 72 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. clay long drawn out into a rope and rolled round, was then bent into circular layers, so as to form a base, then swelling sides, and then often the contracted neck of a jar or bottle. A large number of our acquisitions bear some sort of or- nament, as swelling bosses; or, on the other hand, sunken dimples, a sort of repousse work produced by the artist’s finger pressing the soft material from without or from within, Other styles of decoration are bits of clay stuck on outside here and there, like spit-balls. Sometimes rims are indented so as to resemble twisted cords or the links of a chain. At other times, there are lines straight or curved, or rising like the rafters of a house. But a ma- jority of the specimens are totally unornamented. These relics devoid of ornament, one is at first inclined to ascribe to the most archaic era of the art. It is not, however, to be forgotten that bones of the mastodon — an animal now extinct — have been found carved with representations of hunting that animal, a find which argues tha* no art is more ancient than the t te for ornament. What was the beginning of the potter’s art? is a natural question. Herodotus tells a story concerning a Scythian custom, which may throw light on the invention of pottery. That people having killed an ox, would use his stomach as a caldron for boiling his flesh. Hung beneath a tripod and high over a fire, such a kettle of green tripe would stand much heat while the flesh was boiling. Now and then, however, it must burn through. What more natural than to stop leaks with the clay on which it may be the fire had itself been kindled? It is the first step that costs. After one clod had been stuck on, the whole stomach would be speedily covered with such fire-fenders, and at the next step would be discarded altogether when the clay pot was once well-baked, or rather would perish in the baking. Behold the possible genesis of prehistoric pottery. American archaeologists hold that our pottery origin- ated, relatively speaking, earlier than that of Egypt. In saying “relatively speaking,” they have reference to the fact that no Egyptian pottery is older than alphabetic PREHISTORIC POTTERY. 73 writing in the land of the Nile, while all our relics of that sort were fashioned among peoples who had not yet in- vented any sort of_A. B. C/s. Our handiwor k seem s then to run back to an earlier stage of development than the earliest Egyptian survivals. The lessons we shall learn from our new discoveries of primeval art, it is impossible to foresee. Varieties in the fashion of vessels may demonstrate the lines of demarca- tion between tribe and tribe — each fish, bird, or animal, may give us a clue to the emblem' or totem distinguishing one clan from another. Ornamental lines which we at first ascribe to capricious fancy may at length turn out to be significant, each one. of some real fact. As a possible aid to future interpretations of what is as yet hieroglyphical, we have procured from William J. Seever, of St. Louis, from whom our purchase was made, both a gen- eral description of the St. Francis valley, the head-centre of mound -.builder burials, and a list of all the several localities there in which our r*Aics were from, first to last gathered up. This article, appended to the present paper, has appeared indispensable for the profitable study of the collection now T garnered in our museum. It will also be invaluable as a guide in making and appreciating further researches. My own hope is sanguine, that within a decade our museum, will be enriched — thanks to our collections from states south and west — with a prehistoric treasure-trove of Wisconsin pottery. No specimen of that sort has in- deed hitherto come into our possession, But we know that some of them exist, indeed we have seen and handled them. Among the fifty thousand visitors who annually w T alk through our show-room we trust that some, now unknown to us, will prove to be owners of these rarities, and will be disposed to place them where they will do most good. In juxtaposition with types from a distance — each class lending and borrowing light by mutual reflection — they will aid, more than can be foreseen, comparative research "in the dark backward and abysm of time.” [Paper submitted at tbe Forty First Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December 14, 1893.1 From the city of Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi river, a well defined line of bluffs extends in a general southwesterly direction across the corner of the state of Missouri, and on into Arkansas. This line of bluffs forms the boundary between the high and low lands of Missouri and Arkansas. An offshoot called Crawley’s ridge sets out in Stoddard county, Mo., passing through the Missouri counties of Stoddard and Butler, and continuing through Arkansas into Clay, Green, Craighead, Poinsett, Cross, St. Francis, Lee, and Phillip counties, terminating near the city of Helena, just below the mouth of St. Fran- cis river. This ridge forms the watershed of the St. Fran- cis and White rivers, and is the dividing line between the valleys of these two streams. The region to the east and north of Crawley’s ridge is termed the Swamp ridge of Missouri and Arkansas. It attains in places a width of forty miles, and a length north and south of about two hundred and fifty miles. The general surface is but little above the mean stage of water in the Mississippi river, and is yearly subject to overflow. It is in this valley, principally along the banks of the Mississippi, St. Francis, and Little rivers — the two latter of which extend through it from north to south — that the most extensive remains of the mound builders are found. On the banks of the St. Francis and its tributaries, at a distance of every few miles, are found large groups of mounds which were once the seats of an extensive popu- lation. Three, four, and often a dozen or more mounds