The aboriginal natives of northern Europe, the Celtic, and Teutonic, and Scandinavian races, had from the earliest period a rude pottery, consisting of coarse vessels of clay, of rude construction, with open mouths, thick walls, made of a paste of clay mingled with small pebbles, and imperfectly baked in rude furnaces by means of wood, straw, or weeds. This ware, more or less brown or gray, is found in the lowest stratas of human remains, the tumuli of the races which used stone and bronze weapons, and in the oldest cromlechs. It was not made on the wheel, but fashioned by the hand ; and the ornaments imitate the rude tattooing of the natives, and the decorations of their jewels, consisting of hatched bands, chevrons, zones, and other designs, either impressed by twigs or rushes. These vases, known to the Romans as bascauda, or baskets, and imported to Rome, hold the ashes of the dead ; some few are of small size, and all appear to have been employed for household purposes. They exhibit great local differencea, and some of the most remarkable are those in shape of ancient houses found at Chemnitz in Thuringen, at Roenne, in the isle of Beruholm, and at I'archim. These native wares appear to have never been entirely superseded by the Roman wares amongst the Northern races ; and the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians and Gauls, under the first dynasty, manufactured a kind of ware of a dark paste, imper fectly baked, or even sun-dried, and in the shape of jars, ornamented with impressions from bone or wooden stamps, representing fleurettes, crosses, triangles, and other ornaments, disposed in bands or rows round the neck of the vases. The use of glass, horns, wooden cups, and jugs of perishable materials, caused, however, the disuse of smaller vessels of earthenware. After the fall of the Roman empire, the working of terra cotta disappeared with the decline of the arts, and only reappeared with their revival. Large and remarkable pieces, as that of S. Antony, were executed, however, by Nicole of Arezzo, in the I4th century, for his native town; and in the 15th, Simon made a Magdalen of heroic size for Florence. Celebrated works of Mazzoni Guido Paganino of 3Iodena, and Belsa of Florence, are still seen in that town, Venice, Ferrara, and Naples; and in Spain, in the 16th century, Miguel made colossal statues of St. Paul and SL Peter, for the cathedral of Seville ; and Germain Pillon, in France, at the close of the same century, executed colossal religious works. During the 18th century, however, only coarse figures for gardens seem to have been made of this material. At the clone, however, of the last century, the art had considerably revived, both for sculpture and architecture; and in France, both Clodion and 3Iene executed works of merit in this material. The application of terra cotta to buildings and sepulchres has had, however, a greater extension, and the buildings of Toulouse, Dresden, Berlin, and Munich, the churches and other edifices, are often enriched with terra cotta reliefs and other ornaments. The use of bricks, which it is scarcely possible to conceive can have been entirely lost, is said to have been re-introduced Into England by Alfred in the 9th century, but according to the best authorities does not date earlier than the 14th century.
The manufacture of a *oft fine pottery, and of a coarse pottery un glazed by plumbiferous or stanniferous glazes, seems to have prevailed all over the habitable globe. Great jars, imitated from the ancient dolls, are still made in the Puy de Dome, in France ; near Florence ; in Spain, where they are called tinujas ; in Armenia, named krouprhirees; by the Bushmen of Atrial; the Javanese ; the Guaytokares, or old Indian tribe of the Corroadoa, on the banks of the Paraiba, in Brazil, where they were employed to hold the bodies of the dead. Smaller vessels of unglazed earthenware, for common purposes, are now made all over Europe. One of the most extensive classes are the water coolers, a kind of bottle of porous clay, called alcara=a in Spanish, ski:rad:4 in Portuguese. Spain is particularly celebrated for their manufacture, which is said to have flourished as early as Aar. 304, and they are still made in Valencia and Andalusia. The principal Asiatic pottery of this
class is stated to be the fine red ware of Anatolia, that of Broussa, the yellowish white of Mecca, the red coffee-pots of Has in Yemen, the red clay pipe bowls of Sam, the water bottles of white ware of Cora in Persia. In India the character of the ware resembles in its typo that of China; Chandranagore, Pondicherry, and Kanial manufacture red and brownish lamps for pagodas; at Calcutta the ware is reddish brown and micaceous. The pottery of Cochin China is fine, hard, light, and turned ; of Manilla, white and turned, with another fabric introduced by the Spaniards. Ceylon produces spheroidal vases, of a red paste ; Java, red turned pottery ; Sumatra, at Palembang, water coolers of a pale reddish-brown ware. Manfaloot, in Egypt, makes great jars of yellow clay for holding indigo, and eelalt mograbby, or white water coolers of Marocco, the yr or common jars, and at Khenneh in Upper Egypt bardachs or water coolers, of a thin yellowish ware, are made in such abundance and so cheap as to be seldom used twice. Algiers and Tunis produce a whitish pottery, thin and turned ; and that of the Nigritic tribes, in the centre of Africa, chiefly from liana, is either of a pale reddish-brown with coatings of red or white colour, or else of a black colour, feebly baked. At Madagascar the pottery is of an ashen gray and micaceous paste, sometimes with black anthracite bands.
The aboriginal pottery of America resembles in its general characters, the rudeuess of its type, ornamentation, and baking, that found iu other parts of the world. That found in the northern states, in the tumuli at St. Louis, near the river Merrimac, in Ohio, in Louisiana, Virginia, and Tennessee, has its paste often mixed with the shells of the 3Iyas anodonta, and is ornamented with lines and hatched marks. These potteries are of the rudest kind ; those of the Toltec and Aztec nations, which are found in Mexico, show greater artistic merit, and are principally of rod ware, ornamented with native patterns in white pipe-clay, sometimes modelled in various shapes, and decorated with modelled ornaments of figures of deities and other objects, occasion ally covered with a siliceous glaze. In terra-cotta figures of deities the natives particularly excelled, and have retained the art, modified by Spanish influences, to the present day. In Mitla, Paleuque, and Copau, many objects of various kinds, in terra cotta and soft pottery, have been discovered. The pottery of Mexico at the present day is described as peculiar, of a dirty white, pearl gray, reddish yellow, or black colour, light, and sometimes reddened with ochre, never made by the wheel, but decorated with ornaments of a black colour, and similar to that of the Antilles and Martinique. The ancient potteries of South America resemble in their general characteristics those of Mexico ; in the humus, or tombs of the ancient inhabitants of Peru, especially those near the Lake Titicaca, vases, principally water bottles, of a flue red clay like the Greek, or a dark clay like the Etruscan ware, are found in numbers ; they are light, always made by the band, never by moulds or the wheel, but ofteu are modelled with considerable skill and taste in shape of human heads, men, and animals, and decorated with orna ments resembling the Greek meanders, or with animals on the body, and haudles. Some resemble the Chinese, especially certain vases with a gourd-shaped body and bifurcated necks ; and many with double mouths, when blown into by the mouth, give forth a whistling sound. The potter's art was exercised by all tribes of the continent except the natives of the Pampas. In Brazil the ware is of a red or black colour, modelled in shape of fruit or animals, and coated with an unctuous varnish. The modern ware of Peru differs from the ancient, but still retains a local character. At Lima and Callao a red pottery, covered with an ochreous coating, and a blackish ware, all baud-made and feebly baked, Is manufactured, along with a coarse red pottery at I taty. North of Corrientes coarse black linajas, in imitation of the Spauish, are made. The ware of Chili resembles that of Peru; that of Paraguay is black.