[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Fine, closely woven cloth preserved by contact with copper beads.]
Traces of basketry are rarely preserved either by charring or by contact with copper. Matting is occasionally preserved in these ways. Figure 11 illustrates a piece of rush matting found fixed to the surface of a bit of copper in a mound near Augusta, Georgia.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY THIRTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VI CHARRED CLOTH FROM MOUNDS IN OHIO.]
The weaving of the hair of many species of quadrupeds, the buffalo, the opossum, the rabbit, etc., is noted by a number of authors, and a few specimens of haircloth have been recovered from mounds. Mr. Henry R. Howland found in a mound near Alton, Illinois, two varieties of cloth preserved by contact with a copper ornament representing a turtle-shell; they are described as follows:
Closely fitting over the outer surface of the copper shell is, first, a woven cloth of a vegetable fibre, similar in its general character to the outer matting above described, but of a stronger and better preserved fibre, apparently more like that which forms the woven coating of the Davenport axes. This is covered in turn with a softer, finer fabric, now of a dark-brown color, formed of twisted strands, laid or matted closely together, though apparently not woven. The material of which these strands are formed proves, under microscopic examination, to be animal hair.[56]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Small portion of rush matting preserved by contact with copper.]
An illustration of ancient split cane matting is presented in figure 12. The specimen was obtained from Petite Anse island, near Vermilion bay, southern coast of Louisiana, and a photograph was presented to the Smithsonian Institution in 1866, by J. F. Cleu. The following description, as given by Prof. Joseph Henry, appears on the label attached to the specimen:
This fragment of matting was found near the surface of the salt, and about 2 feet above it were remains of tusks and bones of a fossil elephant. The peculiar interest in regard to the specimen is in its occurrence in situ 2 feet below the elephant remains, and about 14 feet below the surface of the soil, thus showing the existence of mart on the island prior to the deposit in the soil of the fossil elephant. The material consists of the outer bark of the common southern cane (_Arundinaria macrosperma_), and has been preserved for so long a period both by its silicious character and the strongly saline condition of the soil.