276 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Sept. 14, iJ 



or resin, for example, then covered it with a thick coat 

 of potter's clay, and exposed it to fierce heat. The 

 inner model melted away, and left the hardened clay as 

 a mould into which could be poured the molten metal. 

 It is possible that sometimes a mixture of gold and 

 mercury was used ; this being more pliable, could be 

 modelled to the required shape, exposed to heat, and 

 finished by the aid of coarse tools ; the little figures 

 numbered 1, 3, and 4 in our illustration, were probably 

 made in this manner, as were also many of the Peruvian 

 ornaments. The artists of Chiriqui do not appear to 

 have understood the art of engraving or of embossing, 

 judging at least from the fact that no specimens of such 

 work have hitherto been found in their huacas, but they 

 were very clever in joining the separate parts of their 

 designs together, the joins being often almost invisible, 

 and were also very deft in their manipulation of fine 

 gold wire, frequently attaching extra ornamentation to 

 their figures by means of twisted wires. Fig. 3 shows 

 a good example of this kind of work. Occasionally 

 objects, instead of being made of pure gold, are 

 made of copper, gilded, while others are plated with 

 a layer of gold, as sometimes occurs in the North 

 American mounds, where, however, the gold is often 

 supplanted by iron, which in those early days was 

 accounted rather more precious than the less rare 

 gold. How these various metals were all worked to- 

 gether, and how the more elaborate ornamentation was 

 achieved, remains to this day an unsolved problem, for 

 it seems inexplicable that a people whose ideas of imita- 

 tive arts were, as the representations of human figures, 

 animals, etc., clearly prove, primitive to a degree, should 

 yet have been so far advanced in metallurgic craft. 



One is sometimes tempted to imagine that these 

 models of the human form divine must have been in- 

 tended as grotesque caricatures, and not as bona-fide 

 copies from the original, though it must be confessed 

 that birds and animals also obtain but scant justice at 

 these artists' hands. Eminently unsatisfactory though 

 these achievements appear to us in the light of nine- 

 teenth century art criticism, yet the Chiriqui artists 

 seem to have taken great delight in these reproduc- 

 tions from life, sharing in this respect a predilection 

 manifested throughout the whole of Central America. 

 After the human form, the owl, eagle, parrot, and 

 frog seem to have been the most popular models, but 

 animals and fish of divers species were also pressed 

 into the service. The puma (No. 5 of the illustration) 

 we accept as such, purely by taith, on the strength of 

 La Nature's asseveration that it is a puma ; we our- 

 selves might have been puzzled to decide which family 

 of the animal world could fairly claim so curious a 

 specimen. The fish (No. 7) is evidently symbolic of 

 some old tradition, and is a decided improvement in 

 point of both design and execution upon some of the 

 artistic efforts of the same date. The Chiriqui artificers 

 did not confine themselves solely to these images and 

 models of animate objects as their only branch of 

 decorative art; they were also expert in the manufacture 

 of amulets, beads for necklaces, pins, bells, whistles, 

 etc., made in pure gold or in an alloy of gold and copper, 

 and even produced flat medallions of gold, etc., with 

 added ornamentation, pierced with holes at the top, 

 evidently intended to be worn round the neck as medals 

 of honour. One of these medallions in the Museum, 

 Washington, measures about 28 inches in diameter. 

 Occasionally the bells were made of bronze, gilded, 



elongated in shape, with apertures at the bottom for the 

 sound to escape, and containing little metal balls to 

 serve as clappers. They were frequently suspended on 

 a gold wire (as in Fig. 2). 



The Marquis de Madaillac, in his interesting paper on 

 the subject in La Nature, to which we are indebted for 

 much of the above information, draws attention to a 

 significant fact — the great disparity between the amount 

 of metal produced by the country and that used by 

 the inhabitants in the manufacture of the countless 

 ornaments, etc., found in such numbers in all parts of 

 the isthmus. There are no traces of ancient mines in 

 this particular district, and, so far as we know, no veins 

 of metalliferous deposit, and although there is a certain 

 amount of gold in the form of dust and small nuggets 

 found in the rivers, it seems very improbable that this 

 supply could ever have been sufficient to meet the 

 demand in those old days of metallurgic industry. 

 The raw material must therefore have been imported 

 from other countries, and the inhabitants of Chiriqui 

 must have had, at a very early date, intercourse with 

 other and distant nations. It is interesting to observe, 

 however, that this intercourse had no perceptible effect 

 upon the artistic productions of the Chiriquians, their 

 art being distinctly of native origin, and bearing no traces 

 of foreign influence, either Peruvian or Mexican. 



BIRDS' TONGUES. 



WE are rather accustomed, most of us, to look upon the 

 tongue as primarily and finally an organ of taste 

 and of speech. Such are the functions which it fulfils in 

 ourselves ; and, although speech is a faculty not granted 

 to mammals, we know that their sense of taste, if not 

 always very keen, is certainly not wanting. And so, in 

 them, we are apt to consider the tongue as an instru- 

 ment of that special sense, seldom realising that it may 

 have other duties to perform, and those very possibly of 

 a far more important character. And this, in point of 

 fact, we find to be the case in such mammals as the lion, 

 the giraffe, and the ant-eater. In the first of these the 

 tongue becomes a rasp, suitable for scraping the flesh of 

 a victim from the bones ; in the second it is an instru- 

 ment of prehension, adapted for plucking the foliage of 

 trees ; and in the third it is principally a weapon, lubri- 

 cated with a kind of natural bird-lime, which causes ants 

 and other small insects to adhere to it as it is swept to 

 and fro among them. Yet there can be no doubt that, 

 in the generality of mammals, it is an organ of taste, and 

 very little else, although in some it has its uses as an 

 auxiliary in mastication. 



In the birds, however, the sense of taste seems almost 

 wholly wanting ; and, even were it present, it is difficult 

 to see in what manner it could be of service. For 

 many birds — most birds, in fact — swallow their food 

 without any sort of preparation in the mouth. They are 

 entirely without teeth — now-a-days — and therefore mas- 

 tication is impossible. And so we find that predacious 

 birds, insect-eating birds, fruit-eating birds, and seed- 

 eating birds alike almost invariably swallow their food 

 in such a manner that its flavour could not by any 

 possibility be appreciated by the nerves of taste, even 

 were such nerves not only present, but present in a 

 highly developed degree. 



The tongue, therefore, when present in any bity a 

 rudimentary form, is adapted to fill far other offices than 



