27 
6, fig. 1, 2, were sketched at the same time ; their accuracy is, 
however, sufficient for the purpose of illustration ; they are given 
as being better examples than those figured in M. Boucher de 
Perthes’ work. All were found in the peat of the Somme Yalley. 
The contents of Case Y indisputably prove that men entirely 
r destitute of metallic tools and utterly ignorant of metals did, with 
the aid of sharpened stones and shells, of pointed bones and teeth, 
work not only in wood and bone, but in the hardest stone, such as 
jade, which resists the scratch of a steel knife (Nos. 4, 5, and 11). 
They did not accomplish this in a clumsy way, but they formed 
the outline of their implements in a regular manner and with 
great precision, frequently decorating portions with carved embel¬ 
lishments, and in some instances boring the handles with cylindric 
perforations (No. 15). It must be remembered also that the 
unknown builders and sculptors of the deserted city of Copan, in 
Central America, dressed all the stone for those vast buildings, and 
carved all those colossal figures, profuse as they are in their details 
and roughened as they are with hieroglyphics, with tools of stone 
only. 
Plate 10 represents two magnificent examples of Aztec work, 
both in the collection of H. Christy, Esq. The Aztecs certainly 
used bronze, but they were entirely ignorant of the value or 
application of iron, although the ores of iron abound in Mexico, 
and nearly pure iron occurs ip aerolites of great size as at Cholula 
and at Zacatecas. Fig. 1 is an Aztec stone hatchet, very hard, 
but worked with great precision and highly polished; it is given 
from a hasty sketch made in looking over Mr. Christy’s fine private 
museum, but is tolerably correct in the details. Fig. 2 is an Aztec 
knife of chalcedony, mounted in a wooden handle incrusted with 
mosaic of turquoise, malachite, and white and red shell, all cut, 
polished, and fitted with extreme nicety; the handle is sculptured 
in the form of a crouching human figure. The locality is fixed by 
the blade, being of the semi-transparent opalescent chalcedony, 
described by Humboldt as occurring in the volcanic districts of 
Mexico—the concretionary silex of the trachytic lavas. What a 
strange ethnological type is presented by this rude blade, which is 
yet mounted in a handle of such elaborate workmanship. 
1. Stone adze, mounted in handle of carved wood (South Sea 
Islands). 
2. Stone hatchet, mounted in wooden handle (New Zealand). 
3. Stone hatchet, mounted in wooden handle (South Sea Islands), 
see also fig. 31 on diagram. 
4. Jade adze, mounted in wooden handle, elaborately carved (New 
Zealand). The handle exhibits traces of considerable use; 
where the wood has split, it has been secured by rivets, with 
heads made from the shell of the haliotis (called by the 
natives paw a). Upon the handle is carved a grotesque repre¬ 
sentation of the human figure, with the tongue thrust out in 
