THE METAL ART OF ANCIENT MEXICO. 525 



iards, unassisted by natives, " with the necessary tools to bring him 

 samples of it." After this a sufficient quantity is procured, though it 

 cost him, he says, " a work of much labor.'''' 



But, however much this may indicate the possession of tin among 

 the natives, we know to-day that there is none in Tasco ; and though, 

 perhaps, it may be found in Michoacan and Jalisco, the Mexicans have 

 not thought it worth their while to work it. Baron Humboldt, who 

 paid a visit to Tasco, had perhaps the best opportunities for the dis- 

 covery of a mine, but nowhere does he speak of finding any traces of 

 such ancient works. Though he must have known what Cortes had 

 said concerning Tasco, he tells us that there the natives obtained not 

 tin, but silver. This tin of Tasco, it should be noted, is not mentioned 

 by Bernal Diaz or Gomora, and this, with the tin seen on sale in the 

 Mexican market, both vague and barren of description as to how it 

 was obtained, are the only instances in the authorities upon which our 

 belief is based. Tin, strange to say, is not embraced in that well- 

 known list of tributes which were paid to Montezuma by the subordi- 

 nate tribes, neither can it claim the distinction accorded to copper and 

 gold to be figured in the ancient paintings. The axes figured therein, 

 we have heretofore seen, could scarcely have been an alloy of copper 

 and tin, for their shape corresponds to the axes in our museums, which 

 are of hammered pure copper. 



Our belief, then, in what Cortes has said concerning this metal is 

 somewhat shaken, but additional reason for discrediting him will be 

 hereinafter presented when we come to consider the circumstances that 

 influenced his statements. 



The fact that lead is also enumerated is enough to warn us to take 

 these statements cum grano salis. I know of no place in Mexico 

 where lead is worked to-day, though Humboldt tells us that in ]803 

 it was feebly mined in the extreme northeast. It is found to a limited 

 extent in the States of Oaxaca and Chihuahua, but it is associated with 

 silver; and, if the natives made use of this supply, which is extremely 

 doubtful, they must have possessed the scientific knowledge by means of 

 which the two metals are separated. Cortes is sustained in this state- 

 ment as to lead only by Gomora ; and he, while designedly reasserting 

 what his master and patron had already said about the metals of the 

 market-place, is careful, however, to add the important qualification 

 that " lead was scarce." , 



The subordinate Cortes, on landing in Mexico, shrewdly saw in its 

 conquest an opportunity for his ambition. He feared that he might 

 in this be superseded by another should he await the forms of Spanish 

 law, so he contrived an election by which he was irregularly made a 

 captain-general, and then boldly undertook a military expedition with- 

 out a royal charter. 



Thus there is hardly a doubt, and his letters plainly indicate it, 

 that his prime object in these reports was to so frame them as to se- 



