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A STUDY OF MEXICO.
implements, the use of which is somewhat doubtful, that the Aztecs ever had any knowledge and made any use of metal tools; and in only a comparatively few instances have fabrications of copper, of unquestionable antique origin, ever been discovered in connection with Aztec remains in Mexico.[1] And of the pottery and stone-work in
- ↑ In 1873 a workman, employed in making a reconnaissance of a vein of copper in the State of Guerrero, uncovered an excavation some eleven feet long by five deep and three and a half wide, at the bottom of which was found *a vein of copper from one and a half to four inches thick. Examination showed that the vein had been worked, and that, while there was no sign of the use of iron or powder, the walls and the floor presented traces of fire. At first no tools were discovered; but on a careful search among the débris there were found one hundred and forty-two masses of stone of various sizes, different from any of the rocks constituting the mountain, shaped like hammers and wedges, and the edges of which were worn and broken off. Here, then, was evidently a vein of copper which had been worked to a limited extent by the native races in earlier times; and their method of mining was also clearly shown to be by the rude process of rendering the rock friable by heating and rapidly cooling, and then pounding off metal by means of stone hammers and wedges. Cortes, in one of his letters to Charles V, states that, in addition to the tribute of maize, honey, and cloth which was paid to the Mexican kings before the downfall of their empire by certain subject tribes, the furnishing of a number of hatchets of copper was required. But what sort of hatchets these were indicated by the circumstance, that some years ago an earthen pot was uncovered by the plow in a field near Oaxaca, which contained no less than two hundred and seventy-six of them; all very thin, three or four inches in length, and shaped somewhat in the form of the letter T. And as this description answers to other so-called hatchets, which have been discovered at other times and places, the idea has been suggested that the articles in question were not tools, but ornaments, or possibly coins. According to Señor Mendoza, the director of the National Museum at Mexico, there are in this
