522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of Sahagun's writing, about 1550." These metal-smiths were evi- 

 dently bound to secrecy in their art, for, in the Viceroy Mendoza's 

 time, Lorenzana says that one of these workmen was imprisoned for 

 counterfeiting the Spanish coins, and, though he was promised pardon 

 if he would reveal the workshops of his people, his persistent silence 

 caused him to be put to death. 



We find that chisels also are enumerated by Sahagun in the above 

 quotation, and there is no reason why we can not ascribe the three 

 bronze chisels that we have to the native metal-smiths to whom he 

 refers. We have, at any rate, no evidence, historic or archaeologic, by 

 which we might reasonably consider them as belonging to the period 

 before the conquest. Two of these bronze chisels are in the National 

 Museum at Washington, but, unfortunately for our present investiga- 

 tion, their origin is unknown, and no analysis of them has been made 

 to determine the relative percentage of copper and tin. 



The remaining bronze chisel is in the Museum of Mexico, and is 

 described and figured in the annals of that institution, Vol. I, page 

 117. It should be noted that its form is very unlike either of the 

 two to which we have above referred, and that it has a percentage of 

 97*87 parts of copper and 2 - 13 of tin, which is precisely the same as 

 that of a bronze chisel found by Mr. J. II. Blake in Peru and 

 described in Wilson's "Prehistoric Man," Vol. I, page 293. We 

 know not where, when, or how it was found, and if we doubt that it 

 was fashioned by the native metal-smiths who worked after the ad- 

 vent of the Spaniards, we might suppose it to have wandered thus far 

 from its Peruvian home, for greater distances, we know, did the cop- 

 per of Lake Superior travel in aboriginal barter. 



But besides these there have also been found many other chisels, 

 and these as far as we know are all of copper. Dupaix describes sev- 

 eral which were plowed up in the neighborhood of the village of 

 Antequera in Oaxaca. They are composed, he says, of red copper 

 which we remember his editor, Lenoir, called native. Dr. Philipp 

 Valentini refers to another which, he says, is similar in form and 

 composition to those described by Dupaix. This was plowed up by 

 Senor Andrez Axnar Perez on his plantation near the river Zompan 

 in Tabasco, at a depth of nearly twelve inches. Unfortunately, none 

 of Dupaix's chisels can now be found, but the cut he gives shows 

 them to have been of the simplest form, and not unlike those in use 

 by our carpenters to-day. These, and that of Senor Perez, are uni- 

 form in shape and composition, while each of the three of bronze 

 presents a strikingly odd and distinct type. An analysis of their 

 composition would doubtless show also a varying percentage of cop- 

 per and tin, and we feel tempted, under the circumstances, to regard 

 those of pure copper, which are uniform, as indigenous, and the 

 bronze, which are odd, as importations from South America, or else 

 the product of post-Columbian skill. 



