22 



PHYSICAL HISTORY OF MAN. 



cloth, all of cotton, but of various degrees of fineness, and even of dif- 

 ferent colours ; among which blue was distinguishable. Fish-nets also 

 of cotton, and made after the usual method, which is common aUke 

 to Europeans, Polynesians, and Feejeeans. And a neatly made sling, 

 which was the only semblance of an implement of war, though pro- 

 bably not so intended : slings, it has already been observed, are used 

 by the Fuegians, but not, that I am aware of, by our North American 

 tribes. 



Stone hatchets, very similar to those found in the United States, 

 occur among the antiquities of Peru ; a circumstance unexpected in 

 a people acquainted with the use of metals; though we may note 

 the possibility of their belonging to the anterior period of Peruvian 

 history. 



A head-dress, stated to have belonged to " Atahualpa, the last of the 

 Incas," has recently been sent to Washington ; and it is here men- 

 tioned, on account of the analogy in the style of ornament, to the 

 bands of Dentalium shells of Northwest America. 



The knowledge of metals in aboriginal America, appears to have been 

 almost exclusively confined to Peru and Mexico, with the interven- 

 ing countries. The value especially attached to the ' precious metals' 

 by the natives of these countries, is a suspicious circumstance; which 

 even tends to invalidate the supposition of any independent develop- 

 ment of civilization. It should be observed, that the knowledge of 

 metals has certainly not been derived through the islands of the 

 Pacific; for they scarcely afford traces of ores, and even metallic im- 

 plements do not appear to have been aboriginally conveyed beyond 

 the western extreme of New Guinea. Extending now these limits 

 so as to include Australia, and I think we have nearly defined the 

 portion of the globe whose inhabitants were found by Europeans to 

 be destitute of metals. 



I do not know whether 'precious stones were anywhere prized in 

 aboriginal America ; but they are among the articles which travelled 

 furthest during the early period of commercial intercourse: and by 

 tracing them to their several localities, additional light may here- 

 after be thrown on certain portions of history. 



