THE METAL ART OF ANCIENT MEXICO. 



531 



It may be asked, however, how came their temples, and such works 

 as the so-called Calendar Stone, for instance, so exquisitely carved, if 

 they knew not the use of bronze ? As for their temples, Mr. Norman 

 has told us that most of them are composed of a fine concrete lime- 

 stone, in the carving of which " flint was undoubtedly used." Only 

 implements of flint, obsidian, and other stones, and copper have been 

 found among these ruins, and this fact rather encourages the belief that 

 the natives carved these stones when first taken from the quarry, in 

 their soft condition, with tools of this description, the rock afterward 

 becoming hard on exposure to the air. Herrera, speaking of the dis- 

 tricts of Yucatan, distinctly tells us that " in all of them there were 

 so many and such stately stone buildings, that it was amazing, and the 

 greatest wonder is that, having no use of any metal, they were able to 

 raise such structures." Landa, too, who was a contemporary of the 

 conquest, adds his testimony by saying that "there exist many beau- 

 tiful structures of masonry in Yucatan, all of them built of stone, and 

 showing the finest workmanship, the most astonishing that ever were 

 discovered in the Indies, and we can not wonder at it enough, because 

 there is not any class of metal in this country by which such works 

 could be accomplished." 



The so-called Calendar and Sacrificial Stones unearthed in the 

 city of Mexico, and most of their idols, are made from large blocks of 

 basalt, and to dress or carve this very hard volcanic material with a 

 bronze chisel, however well it may be tempered, is impossible. A 

 process of grinding and rubbing, which archaeologists have now dem- 

 onstrated to be extremely practicable, and in which the Mexicans, as 

 in other things, became more expert than their northern brethren, was 

 doubtless the only means employed. 



The remains of native work in bas relief are now known to be very 

 numerous, but neither among the ruins of Palenque, Uxmal, Copan, 

 Chichen, nor Mitla can there be found a single metal tool. Had these 

 extensive works been fashioned with bronze implements, far more 

 specimens than the paltry three that we have would have come to 

 light ere now, within the broad area in which they are embraced. 



President Barnard reviews the subject of elective studies in his annual 

 report of Columbia College. He thinks that during the growing period of the 

 mind the studies should be prescribed, for discipline, and to discover the bent^f 

 the mind. They should, at the same time, be so varied as to offer every fac- 

 ulty of the mind an equal inducement for exertion. The preference will then 

 be free to manifest itself. The time for introducing the elective element should 

 be fixed, then, rather with reference to maturity of years than to the degree of 

 advancement in the four years' round of college study. This, with the average 

 of college students, appears to be attained in the nineteenth or twentieth year ; 

 an age which corresponds, in most students, nearly with the end of the sopho- 

 more year. 



