The Red Cloud chief., 1900-12-06
POTTERY MAKING IN INDIA.
An Art Understood In the Far East foi
Cour tiess Ages.

Cour siess Ages.
OF all materials put in use by the an.
cient inhabitants of India, clay must,
at a very remote period, have held .
large place. The plains of India are
hountifully supplied with clay, by the
foundations OF the great rivers, the
Indus, and more particularly the
Ganges, and the native potter found
ready to his hand an unfailing supply
of the material for his art. The dis
eovery Of the plastic nature Of clay,
and the facility with which IL can be
worked into any shape. is not above
the capacity Of the rude a v
age. There Is abundant evi.
dence that sun-dried bric;as pre-
coded the art OF working vases; dessi-
Gated objects, however, have an ugly
tendency Of resolving themselves into
their original mud, so that even in tho
most favored countries, as Egg pt, for
example, the state of the atmosphere
will not allow crude clay to survive q
single winter. The baking OF 1t SO as
TO prod ,ce an indestructible tenacity
was an immense advance, and probably
the result Of accident rather than de-
sign. The Hindoos, unlike the Egyp
tians, Assyrians, and even the Romans.
do not seem to have used bricks to i'm
press upon them the names OF thor
kings or their governors or the build.
ings for which they were intended, or
Is to tablets for their public ar.
chives, their astronomical computa-
tions, their annals, their title
deeds and their religious dedica.
tions. This is much to be de-.
plored, for, had they done so, we should
not be left TO grope In the dark with
regard to the history of their early
civilization, but we should have dc.
tailed accounts Of particular buildings
and the chief events connected with
the various buildings of the vast pen
Ursula. The modelling in clay the
forms Of the physical world gave rise
to the plastic art, and Hindoo panthe
ism. better than any other religious
creed, served to diffuse it throughout
the Indian provinces.
The Invention of the pc%ter's wheel
was an immense improvement upon the
rude methods previously adopted in
f%ashioning vessels by the hand alone.
By the application of a circular table,
laid hoI izontally, and revolving upon
. central pivot, on which the clay was
put, all combinations Of forms could
be produced IS the wheel spun round,
and vessels became symmetrical in
their proportions and true in their ca
pacity. AS with every invention re-
specting which nothing is known, that
Of the wheel has been ascribed to all
nations OF antiquity. 1t Is represented
In full activity in Egypt rs for back as
400 Is. c.; we find mention of It in the
Scriptures e Samuel, xviii, %; Jere-
miah xviii. 1-9 while vases with the
marks OF the wheel upon them have
been unearthed in Assyria, and we may
safely conclude that factile vessels for
domestic OF religious uses were made
at an early period in India.
On the other hand the ancient
Semites, like their kinsmen Of Pales-
tine, set no great store by the
potter's art. They deemed the material
too commons: their love of the pre-
cious metals making them prefer gold
and silver. In India, whether owing
to difference of race, with its large ad-
mixture of Turanian blood, than which
none is more initiative or artistically
endowed, or religious scruples which
will not allow natives to use the same
vessel or idol twice lest it should be
dehled, the fact remains that no coun.
try in the world has SO great a demand
Tor earthen pots and pans of a common
kind, but ever OF pleasing shapes, and
must have had for countless genera
ton. So universal is the manufac-
ture Of earthenware at the present
day that scarcely a hamlet is found
without its kiln. The desire Of max.
ing terra Gotta less porous and better
fitted for retaining liquors led to the
invention Of an impervious covering or
glaze, consisting Of opaque glasses or
enamcls, which in Egypt are sold as
the eighteenth dynasty. The employ.
ment OF copper with a little lead to
produce a brilliant blue enamel was
very early, both in Babylonia and As.
syria; the use OF tin for a white en-.
amel, found on the encaustic tiles OF
Babylonia. Assyria and Egypt, antici.
pated the rediscovery of it by Lucca
della Robbis In the fifteenth century,
Indian Magazine and Review.