Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1880 — The Pottery Tree. [ARTICLE]

The Pottery Tree.

One of the most remarkable of those trees which bear a stony or silicions bark is the “pottery tree ” of Para, on the Amazon, termed “Caraipa,” by the Brazilians, and known to botanists as the Moquilea utilis. It is a magnificent tree, and sometimes rises to a hundred feet before branching. The wood is exceedingly durable, being largely impregnated with flint, but the principal value of the tree lies in its bark, which is used by the Brazilians for furnishing the raw material of pottery. It is not that vessels are made from the bark itself, as they are sometimes, made from gourds and calabashes; but the bark is burned, and the silicions ashes, mixed with a proportion of river clay, make a strong and serviceable ware. New prosecutions of the Jews are to be apprehended in Russia. Russian official correspondents are openly inciting them by insinuating that the Jews are mediators between Internationalists abroad and the Nihilists in Russia, 08 well as being concerned in circulating forged Russian bank-notes made in London by Internationalists expressly for Nihilist purposes. As a smoker, Secretary Thompson is almost a rival of Gen. Grant.