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They also manufacture, according to their aboriginal art, both for their own consumption, and for the purpose of traffic, a species of earthenware not much inferior to the coarse crockery of our common potters. The pots made of this material stand fire remarkably well, and are the universal substitutes for all the purposes of cookery, even among the Mexicans, for the iron castings of this country, which are utterly unknown there. ...it evinces a great deal of skill, considering that it is made entirely without lathe or any kind of machinery. It is often fancifully painted with colored earths and the juice of a plant called guaco, which brightens by burning. They also work a singular kind of wicker-ware, of which some bowls are so closely platted, that, once swollen by dampness, they serve to hold liquids, and are therefore light and convenient vessels for the purposes of travelers.
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p.64

 

Josiah Gregg

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Bricks... should not be made of sandy or pebbly clay, or of fine gravel, because when made of these kinds they are in the first place heavy; and secondly when washed by the rain as they stand in walls, they go to pieces and break up, and the straw in them does not hold together on account of the roughness of the material. They should rather be made of white and chalky or of red clay, or even of a coarse grained gravelly clay. These materials are smooth and therefore durable; they are not heavy to work with, and are readily laid.

 

Vitruvius

 

The aliment of these Indians is, in most respects, similar to that of the Mexicans... the latter adopted with their utensils numerous items of aboriginal diet. The tortilla, the atole, the pinole and many others, together with the use of chile, are from the Indians. Some of the wilder tribes make a peculiar kind of pinole, by grinding the bean of the mezquite tree into flour, which is then used as that of corn. And besides the tortilla they make another singular kind of bread, if we may so style it, called guayave, a roll of which so much resembles a hornets' nest... It is usually made of Indian corn prepared and ground as for tortillas, and diluted into a thin paste. I once happened to enter an Indian hut where a young girl of the family was baking guayaves. She was sitting by a fire, over which a large flat stone was heating, with a crock of prepared paste by her side. She thrust her hand into the paste, and then wiped it over the heated stone. What adhered to it was instantly baked and peeled off. She repeated this process at the rate of a dozen times or more per minute. ...I found it pleasant enough to the taste; though when cold... it is, like the cold tortilla, rather tough and insipid. They are even thinner than wafers; and some dozens, being folded in a roll, constitute the laminate composition before mentioned. Being thus preserved, they serve the natives for months upon their journeys.

 

Josiah Gregg

 

The men of Yale,the men of the universities, all, who, when the country called, went to give their lives, did more than reflect honor upon the universities from which they came. They did that which they could not have done so well in any other way. They showed that when the time of danger comes, all Americans, whatever their social standing, whatever their creed, whatever the training they have received, no matter from what section of the country they have come, stand together as men, as Americans, and are content to face the same fate and do the same duties because fundamentally they all alike have the common purpose to serve the glorious flag of their common country.

 

Theodore Roosevelt

 

If this was the plan - was it made by someone who likes us? And if so, why have 99.9% of all the other species that have ever been created already died out? And part of what plan was that?; If it is a plan or a design, the planner must be either very capricious - really toying with his creation; and/or very clumsy, very tinkering and fantastically wasteful - throw away 99.9% of what you've made; or very cruel and very callous; or just perhaps very indifferent; or some combination of all the above. And so it's no good saying that He moves in mysterious ways, or that He has purposes that are opaque to us, because even that kind of evasion has to make itself predicate on the assumption that the person saying this knows more than I do about the supernatural, and I haven't yet met anyone who does have a private line to the creator, of the sort that would be required even to speculate about it. In other words, I haven't met anyone, in holy orders or out of it, who isn't also a primate. And neither have you.

 

Christopher Hitchens

 

We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hard-ware of England for the wines of France;and yet hard-ware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. But it readily occurs that the number of such utensils is in every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them;that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there;and that if the quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it, apart of the increased quantity of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an additional number of workman whose business it was to make them.

 

Adam Smith