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the body was place i, and in another the utensils and ornaments. 

 Sometimes gold in its natural state was left in an earthenware 

 vessel, mixed with pounded charcoal. When the chief or gover- 

 nor was interred, an imitation of the sun or the moon was placed 

 in the tomb. The sun was represented by a flat, round plate of 

 gold, or alloy of copper, about an eighth of an inch thick, and 

 sometimes more than twenty inches in diameter. The moon was 

 made of a silver plate, showing the half moon. A neck ring and 

 bracelets, a waist band and ankle rings, made of gold, sometimes 

 alloyed with copper, were also left with the body of a chief These 

 rings are from one and a quarter to two inches in width, and 

 opened and closed as a spring, They are thin and perfectly equal 

 in width and thickness throughout. In fact, they are so perfect 

 that it is diflScult to imagine how such laminated rings were pro- 

 duced, considering the deficiency of suitable implements for such, 

 delicate and exact work. There are several of these tombs above 

 ground still to be seen. 



The excavated tombs,as found in our times, are all alike through- 

 out South America. The Spanish conquerors having entered the 

 territory of ^* la, Capitana de la Neuva Granada," and collected all 

 the gold they could among the Indians, turned their attention to 

 the natural sources of gold, and also to the burial places, which 

 soon became objects of much interest to the gold seekers. These 

 tombs are always found on some isolated range with sharp out- 

 lines, so situated as not to admit of any water accumulating, and 

 no apparent probability of water being led to it. In hills so situ- 

 ated the excavations are discovered by observing certain conca- 

 vities on the surface ; but where a thick forest exists, with a dense 

 undergrowth, often of several feet, it is necessary to clear the 

 ground by fire. It is generally allowed that a long period has 

 elapsed since these tombs were closed, as by the accounts of the 

 Mexicans and Peruvians, given at the time of the conquest, their 

 calculations amounted to about two thousand years. The excava- 

 tion is circular and perpendicular, and three or four feet in dia- 

 meter, dug out of the decomposed syenitic rock. At the depth of 

 nine to eleven feet charcoal is found among the soil, under which 

 •a flat stone (some kind of slate) covers the pit, on removing which 

 the edge of a perpendicular slab is observed. At about four feet 

 deeper the bottom of the tomb is reached, and on the perpendicu- 

 lar slab being removed, a horizontal excavation is seen towards 

 th« east. This is about four feet in height and the same in width 

 but somewhat more in length. Here the bones of the defunct are 



