In 1893 Mr. Harle purchased at St. Gerons, Ardeche, a merchant's entire stock of modern porcelain spindle-whorls. The manufactory was located at Martres-Tolosane, and the trade extended throughout the Pyrences. He presented a series to the Société d'anthropologie at Paris, July, 1893. (1)
      The U. S. National Museum has lately received, through the Kindness of Ecole d'Anthropologie, a series of nine of these porcelain whorls (pl. 21). the wheel and modern machines for spinning have penetrated this corner of the world and these whorls are the last emblem of an industry dating slightly after the advent of man on earth and already old in that locality when Roland crossed the mountain pass near there and sounded his "Oliphant," calling for help from Charlemagne. These are the death chant of the industry of hand spinning in that country.


North America --- Pre-Columbian Times.

      The North American Indians employed rushes and animal skins as the principal coverings for themselves and their tents. They used sinews and thongs for thread and cord, and thus avoided largely the necessity for spinning fiber or making textiles; for these or possibly other reasons, we find few spindle-whorls among them compared with the number found in Europe. Yet the North American Indians made and used textile fabrics, and there are pieces of woven cloth from mounds in Ohio now in the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, U. S. National Museum. The Pueblo Indians spun thread and wove cloth in pre-Columbian times, and those within the States of Colorado and Utah and the adjoining Territories of Arizona and New Mexico, particularly the Navajoes, have been long noted for their excellence in producing textile fabrics. Specimens of their looms and thread are on display in the National Museum and have been published in the reports. Special attention is called to that by Dr. Washington Matthews in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82. Dr. Matthews is of the opinion that the work of the Pueblo Indians antedated that of the Navajoes, that the latter learned the art from the former since the advent of the Spaniards; and he remarks that the pupils now excel their masters in the beauty and quality of their work. He declares that the art of weaving has been carried to greater perfection among the Navajoes than among any native tribe in America north of the Mexican boundary; while with none in the entire continent has it been less influenced by contact with Europeans.