100 
ANCIENT AMERICAN WEAPONS. 
Quito. In other places (and this circumstance is very re- 
markable), they are disseminated in pearl-stone, as at Cma- 
pecuaro, in the province of Mechoacan,* and at the Cabo de 
Gates, in Spain. At the peak of Teneritfe the obsidian is not 
found towards the base of the volcano, which is covered with 
modern lava: it is frequent only towards the summit, espe- 
cially from the plain of Retain a, where very fine specimens 
may be collected. This peculiar position, and the circum- 
stance that the obsidian of the Peak has been ejected by a 
crater which for ages past has thrown out no flames, favour 
the opinion, that volcanic vitrifications, wherever they are 
found, are to bo considered as of veiy ancient formation. 
Obsidian, jade, and Lydian-stone, t are three minerals, 
which nations ignorant of the use of copper or iron, have 
in all ages employed for making keen-edged weapons. We 
see that wandering hordes have dragged with them, in their 
distant journeys, stones, the natural position of which the 
mineralogist has not yet been able to determine. Hatchets 
of jade, covered with Aztec hieroglyphics, which I brought 
from Mexico, resemble both in their form and nature those 
made use of by the Gauls, and those we find among the 
South Sea islanders. The Mexicans dug obsidian "from 
mines, which were of vast extent ; and they employed it for 
making knives, sword-blades, and razors. ’ In like manner 
the Guanches, (in whose language obsidian was called taboua.) 
fixed splinters of that mineral to the ends of their lances 
They carried ou a considerable trade in it with the neigh- 
bouring islands ; and from the consumption thus occasioned, 
and the quantity of obsidian which must have been broken 
in the course of manufacture, we may presume that this 
mineral lias become scarce from the lapse of ages. We are 
surprised to see an Atlantic nation substituting, like the 
natives of America, vitrified lava for iron. In both coun- 
tries this variety of lava was employed as an object of orna- 
ment : and the inhabitants of Quito' made beautiful looking- 
glasses with an obsidian divided into parallel laniiiue. 
There are three varieties of obsidian at the Peak. Some 
form enormous blocks, several toises long, and often of a 
spheroid il shape. We might suppose that they had been 
* To the west of the city of Mexico- 
f Lydischeritein. 
