Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/670

648 and yet in turning it over not a drop would spill, but the liquid would readily flow out when the jar was simply inclined. The Peruvians were good portraitists, and many of the faces represented might pass for likenesses of people now living on the coast. The potter of the present day uses a primitive contrivance,



something like two tables fastened together and revolving on an axis firmly fixed in the ground. The lower table serves as a treadle by which the workman imparts a rotary motion with his naked feet to the whole contrivance. On the upper table, the smaller of the two, is placed the moist clay which the potter shapes to his fancy.

The pots found in tombs are made of various kinds of clay—red, yellow, brown, bluish, and black. The latter is generally only modeled, the red being modeled and painted. None are glazed. Many of the Peruvian jars are double, quadruple, sextuple, even octuple. The pottery of the Antis is believed to be of Quichua (Peruvian) origin. It is coarsely made, painted and varnished. From the cannibal Conibos they obtain, through the Chontaquiros, more elegant ware.

The illustrations (Figs. 1, 2, and 3) represent pieces found by Dr. Le Plongeon on the coast of Peru, all belonging to a period