After thoroughly washing, pulverizing and crushing, it is ready to be worked up into domestic and other utensils. Squatted upon the ground, the potter places in her lap a small basket, wood, or pottery base, upon which she places a "dab" of clay. This she thumbs and pats, until it forms the basis of the new vessel. Then another piece of clay is rapidly rolled between her hands, until it is in the form of along rope. This rope is then coiled around the edge of the base already made, pressed well into it and then smoothed down. After four or five coils of clay are thus added, the potter takes a small "spat," generally a piece of dried gourd skin, dips it into water, and proceeds to smooth out and make thin the clay coils. As quickly and dexterously as can be, her hands and the spat manipulate the vessel, until it has the desired shape. More coils of clay are then added, and the shaping continues until the vessel is complete. Now it is put out into the sun to dry, and when reasonably solid, it is ready for the painting and decoration. With a rude brush made of horsehair or yucca fibre, and paints gathered and ground by herself, she works out the design that her imagination has already created and pictured upon her piece of work. Some of these designs represent conventionalized objects of nature--birds, clouds, mountains, rain, corn, lightning, tadpoles, dragon-flies, horned toads, serpents and the like; others are purely geometrical, and the variety and extent of them are more wonderful than any except the experts realize. In a monograph upon the ancient pottery of these people, Dr. Fewkes pictures every known geometrical figure of ancient and modern times, all of which were copied by him from vessels that have been excavated from ancient ruins and graves.