BY ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF CHIRIQUI. 9 



teemed for their mouey value only. Very many specimens found their 

 way to this country', where they were either sold for curiosities, or, after 

 long waiting- for a purchaser, even in tlie very shadow of our muse- 

 ums, were consigned to the furnace. Many stories bearing upon this 

 l^oint have been told me. A Washington jeweler is represented as 

 having exhibited (about the year IStiO) in his window on Pennsyl- 

 vania avenue a remarkable series of these trinkets, most of which 

 were afterwards sent to New York to be melted. About the same 

 I)eriod a gentleman on entering a shop iu San Francisco was accosted 

 by a stranger who had his pockets well filled with these curious relics 

 and wished to dispose of them for cash, A number of my acquaint- 

 ances have neat but grotesque examples of these little images of gold 

 attached to their watch guards, thus approving the tastes of our prehis- 

 toric countrymen and at the same time demonstrating the identity of 

 ideas of personal embellishment in all times and with all peoples. 



The ornaments are found only in a small percentage of the graves, 

 those probably of persons sufficiently opulent to possess them iu life; 

 the great majority of graves contain none whatever. They are often 

 found at the bottom of the pits, and probably in nearly the position 

 occupied by them while still attached to the persons of the dead. It 

 is said that occasionally they are found in the niches at the sides of the 

 graves, as if placed during the filling of the pit. 



Strangely enough, the gold is very generally alloyed with copper, the 

 composite metal ranging from pure gold to pure copper. A small per- 

 centage of silver is also present in some of the specimens examined, but 

 this is probably a natural alloy. In a few cases very simi>le figures 

 appear to have been shaped from nuggets or masses of the native metals ; 

 this, however, is not susceptible of proof. The work is very skillfully 

 done, so that we find it diflficult to ascertain the precise methods of 

 manipulation. The general eft'eCt in the more pretentious pieces resem- 

 bles that of our filigree work, in which the parts are produced by ham- 

 mering and united by soldering; yet there are many evidences of cast- 

 ing, and these must be considered with care. As a rule simple figures 

 and some portions of composite figures present ver}- decided indications 

 of having been cast in molds; yet no traces of these molds have come to 

 light and there are none of those characteristic markings which result 

 from the use of composite or "piece" molds. Wire was extensively 

 used in the formation of details of anatomy and embellishment, and its 

 presence does not at first seem compatible with ordinary castings. This 

 wire, or pseudo-wire it may be, is generally about one-twenty-fifth of 

 an inch in diameter. 



The manner in which the numerous parts or sections of complex fig- 

 ures are joined together is both interesting and peridexing. Evidences 

 of the use of solder have been looked for in vain, and if such a medium 

 was ever used it was identical in kind with the body of the object or 

 so small in quantity as to escape detection. At the junction of the parts 



