S3 



of a little hill near Valparaiso, some of which were 

 eight feet long and bore the visible marks of the 

 European axe, a proof that this wood must have be- 

 come petrified since the arrival of the Spaniards.* 

 Of all kinds of wood the Chilian willow is perhaps 

 the most susceptible of petrifaction, and pieces of it 

 are every where to be met with that have undergone 

 this change ; to effect which, it requires to be buried 



* That the marks in this wood were produced by an axe, or 

 some tool of a similar kind, I am not disposed to question ; but that 

 it must have been an European axe, will fairly admit of doubt, 

 l^he Mexicans, on the arrival of the Spaniards, made use of axes 

 cr hatchets of copper, and, as we are assured by some respectable 

 authors, possessed the art of tempering that metal for tools in a 

 manner entirely unknov/n to the Europeans ; and that this secret 

 was known to the ancient Chilians is by no means improbable, con- 

 sidering their contiguity and intercourse with the Peruvians, a peo- 

 ple whose progress in the arts was not inferior to that of the Mexi- 

 cans. As the period when this timber was cut is however wholly 

 conjectural, it may perhaps be referred to an earlier date than 

 any authenticated or even traditionary accounts of the country ; to 

 an era when the use of iron was very possibly known, perhaps ante- 

 rior to the deluge, when the face of the globe exhibited far différent 

 aspects and relations than at present. That this hypothesis is not 

 wholly destitute of verisimilitude, the following may serve to show : 

 One of the numbers of the Richmond Enquirer, for the present 

 year, 1807, in giving an account of the antiquities of the interior 

 of America, observes, that " a copper mine was opened some years 

 since further down the Mississippi (below the falls of St. Anthony) 

 when, to the great surprise of the labourers, a large collection of 

 mining tools were found several fathoms below the surface 

 and the writer of this note has been informed from respectable 

 authority, that within a short time since, in the state of Kentucky, 

 some labourers, in digging a well, discovered at the depth of one 

 hundred feet from the surface, the stump of a large tree, with an 

 axe adhering to it, apparently of iron, as on attempting to disen- 

 gage it, it fell into pieces which resembled the rusty scales of that 

 metal Am. Trans, 



