The perfect manner in which the fabric in all its details of plaiting,
netting, and weaving can be brought out is a matter of astonishment; the
cloth itself could hardly make all the particulars of its construction
more manifest.

The examples presented in the accompanying plate will be very
instructive, as the fragment of pottery is given on the left, with its
rather obscure intaglio impressions, and the clay cast on the right with
the cords of the fabric in high relief. The great body of illustrations
have been made in pen directly from the clay impressions, and, although
details are more distinctly shown than in the specimens themselves,
I believe that nothing is presented that cannot with ease be seen in the
originals. Alongside of these restorations I have placed illustrations
of fabrics from other primitive sources.

There appears to be a pretty general impression that baskets of the
ordinary rigid character have been extensively used by our ancient
peoples in the manufacture of pottery to build the vessel in or upon;
but my investigations tend to show that such is not the case, and
that nets or sacks of pliable materials have been almost exclusively
employed. These have been applied to the surface of the vessel,
sometimes covering the exterior entirely, and at others only the body
or a part of the body. The interior surface is sometimes partially
decorated in the same manner.

The nets or other fabrics used have generally been removed before the
vessel was burned or even dried. Professor Wyman, in speaking casually
of the cord-marked pottery of Tennessee, says: