60 AN ANDEAN MEDAL. 



ing material, as silver, lead, or, perhaps, hard wood, by 

 an implement with a blunt rounded extremity. 



We look in vain for evidence of indecision in the design. 

 Spaces or areas are subequal and similar in outline. The 

 workman had just room enough for his last strokes, — 

 neither too much nor too little. He must have marked 

 out the pattern before engraving ; possibly had done his 

 experimenting on other pieces. The only points at which 

 space is left over, or where crowding occurs, are in the 

 border; and there the changes in the inclination of the 

 lines indicate haste or carelessness rather than uncertainty. 



The work is of the nature of that done by persons hav- 

 ing too much leisure, who make something in order to pass 

 the time. It should be placed with the peculiar furniture, 

 strange ornaments and wonderful puzzles wrought by sol- 

 diers, sailors, convicts and others, while at a loss for some- 

 thing to do. This is a class of productions not without 

 importance in art-evolution ; since it is no doubt true that 

 under conditions in some respects similar, in hours of leis- 

 ure without pressure from taskmaster or prospect of re- 

 ward, restless fingers among the aborigines have brought' 

 into existence a great deal of what the man of earlier times 

 and ruder appliances possessed of the ornamental in art. 

 The object of this note being simply to bring the medal to 

 the notice of students interested in such matters, consid- 

 erations of significance and antiquity are left to them. 



