Februaet 19, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



171 



colored deposit. So clever are these fellows, that 

 the vessels are sometimes slightly mutilated be- 

 fore they are submitted to this finishing process. 



This ware may be purchased at any of the relic- 

 shops in the city of Mexico ; but San Juan Teoti- 

 huacan seems to be the headquarters of the traffic. 

 In passing back and forth by the railway, I found 

 that each train was met by one or more of the 

 venders, who were careful to expose but a limited 

 number of pieces, and that this method of sale 

 was systematically practised. Wishing to secure 

 a piece, I waited until the train was about to move 

 off, when I held out a silver dollar, and the vase 

 shown in the accompanying figure was quickly in 

 my possession. The price asked was five dollars, 

 and in the city of Mexico would have been three 

 times that amount. At the rate of purchase indi- 

 cated by my experience at San Juan, at least one 

 piece per day was carried away by tourists, mak- 

 ing hundreds each year. It is not wonderful, 

 therefore, that museums in all parts of the world 

 are becoming well stocked with this class of 

 Mexican antiquities. Oddly enough, no such 

 ware is found among the antiquities of the locali- 

 ty ; and none, so far as I know, occur on the site 

 of any ancient Aztec or Toltec settlement. Not- 

 withstanding this fact, the venders do not hesitate 

 to assign definite localities to the relics, and to 

 give full accounts of their discovery. One of the 

 national museum's pieces is said to have been dis- 

 covered by workmen in digging a well fifty feet 

 beneath the surface ; and another, an excellent 

 lithograph of which appears in the Zeitschrift fiir 

 eihnologie for 1882, is reported to have been found 

 in a cavern at San Juan Teotihuacan. 



The ease with which such pieces can be ob- 

 tained should convince collectors that something 

 is wrong ; but a close examination of the specimen 

 generally yields much additional evidence. It is 

 well known that any article buried for a long time 

 in the earth will be thoroughly discolored, and 

 that every crack and cavity having the least con- 

 nection with the surface will be completely filled 

 with sediment ; but in many cases it will be found 

 that in spurious pieces the doctoring with washes 

 of clay has been too hasty, and that small patches, 

 especially in unexposed places, are not in the least 

 discolored. An attractive whistling vase of com- 

 plicated structure, recently purchased by an 

 American resident of Mexico, was found, upon 

 close examination of obscure parts, to have come 

 but recently from the furnace. 



It should be observed that earthenware similar 

 in type to these modern examples, but not bearing 

 the same evidence of recent manufacture, is given 

 a prominent place in the Mexican national mu- 

 seum ; but I am unable to secure any information 



in regard to its pedigree. It is evident that this 

 dark, ornate pottery does not all belong to the im- 

 mediate present ; but no one seems to be able to 

 say just when or where its manufacture began. 



An American officer engaged in the Mexican 

 war brought back a number of fine pieces now on 

 exhibition in the U. S. national museum. They 

 are said to have been dug up near the village of 

 Texcoco. Well-authenticated Texcocan pieces re- 

 semble this dark pottery in color and texture more 

 closely than any other ; and it is possible that 

 here it was originally made. 



It is perhaps doubtful if any of the elaborate 



EXAMPLE OF MODERN-ANTIQUE MEXICAN VASE (HEIGHT, 11 IN.). 



pieces (now so numerous in collections) in which 

 stamps have been freely used, and which have 

 been in whole or in part cast in moulds, date 

 back to pre-Columbian times. The whole genius 

 of aboriginal methods of procedure goes to dis- 

 credit them. All the wonderful specimens of 

 earthenware known to have been recovered from 

 ancient sites, however complex in structure, or 

 ornate in embellishment, are modelled by the hand 

 alone, without the aid of such devices. If this 

 statement shall prove to be too broad, the error 

 will be in the right direction if it leads to the 



