Historically we learn something of the metal work of the 
American aborigines. Tin, lead, and iron were little known 
and the smelting of ores wa3 in its infancy but gold, copper, 
and silver were ©xtenaiv ly employed when the Spaniards arrived, 
and these metals were forged, fused, cast, alloyed, plated 
and otherwise handled with a skill that astonished the con- 
querors. Archeology verifies the statements of historians 
and adds much to our knowledge of methods of manipulation 
and of the forms produced in the primitive stages of culture, 
not only for the Western continent but for the general history 
of the subject at those periods where the records in the old 
world are most defective, 
CERAMICS — Of art in clay we may say much the sarnie as of sculpt- 
ure. Ho people known to us has furnished such a vast body of 
material for the study of this art from its beginning© up to 
the level of glass and the wheel as have the pre-Columbian 
American©. The clay took on a multitude of forms in which were 
