218 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. GO 



It is not unlikely that there are other worked areas in the vicinity, and 

 extensive workings are reported in the vicinity of Ococingo, several 

 miles toward the east. No outcrops of the obsidian are to be seen 

 on this part of the mountain, and it is apparent that the ancient 

 miners had exploited the entire slope in search of deposits lying at 

 varying depths beneath the surface. The depth of the wider depres- 

 sions usually does not exceed or 8 feet, but some are deeper, and 

 many take the form of wells from 3 to 10 feet in diameter and 15 

 or "20 feet deej), with vertical or overhanging walls. Many of these 

 must have been nnich deeper, for the debris thrown out is more 

 extensi\e than the present openings woidd suggest, and there can 

 be no doubt that in numerous cases tunneling was continued hori- 

 zontally or obliquely for considerable distances along productive 

 layers or bodies of the obsidian. The heaps and ridges of debris 

 thrown out are rarely more than 10 feet in height, but they are well 

 pronounced and abrupt, and the total irregularities of the slope are 

 so great that explorjition is tedious and difficult. Very generally 

 the debris is intermingled with broken obsidian, and in many cases 

 it seems to consist almost exclusively of broken fragments and 

 flakes left by the workmen engaged in getting out the forms desired. 

 In places there are large heaps of flakes where the choice fragments 

 of stone were brought from the mines and placed in the hands of 

 the flakers to be worked uj). 



Extensive areas are covered with these deposits of pure black 



resonant flakes and fragments. One great heap 



Deposits of Flak- ^yj^j^.j^ ]igg ^^pon the mountain slope is more than 



age . . . 



40 feet in vertical extent and many feet in depth, 

 comprising jierhaps 20,000 or 30,000 cubic feet of flakage. Efforts 

 were made to dig into this remarkable deposit (fig. 94), but no 

 headway could be made, as there was no earth to hold the flakes 

 together and the holes dug were immediately filled by sliding, 

 tinkling slivers of glass from above, every piece of which seemed 

 as clean and incisive of edge as when struck off by the workmen 

 perhaps hundreds of years ago. The relation of the deposit of 

 refuse to the mountain slope is suggested in the section, figure 95. 

 Being without a})pliances for descending into the deeper pits, little 



was learned of the subterranean phenomena, and 

 iiammerstones no traces were discovered of the implements used in 



the mining and shaping operations, except a number 

 of hammerstones, which are identical in shape with the chipping ham- 

 mers used in our northern quarries (fig. 90). The larger specimens, 

 4 or 5 inches in diameter and somewhat discoidal or cheese-shaped, 

 were doubtless employed in breaking the obsidian in the mass, but the 

 smaller, many of which are globular in form, must have been used 



