CHAPTER IV. TACUBAYA. PACHUCA. REAL DEL MONTE.

this as it may, an inspection of any good collection of such articles shows the much higher finish of the obsidian implements than of those of flint, agate, and rock-crystal. They say there is an ingenious artist who makes flint arrow-heads and stone axes for the benefit of English antiquarians, and earns good profits by it: I should like to give him an order for ribbed obsidian razors and spear-heads; I don’t think he would make much of them.

[Illustration: ] — Aztec Knife of Chalcedony, mounted on a wooden handle, which is shaped like a human figure with its face appearing through an eagle-head mask, and has been inlaid with mosaic work of malachite, shell, and turquoise. Length 12½ inches. [12]

The wonderful similarity of character among the stone weapons found in different parts of the world has often been used by ethnologists as a means of supporting the theory that this and other arts were carried over the world by tribes migrating from one common centre of creation of the human species. The argument has not much weight, and a larger view of the subject quite supersedes it.

We may put the question in this way. In Asia and in Europe the use of stone tools and weapons has always characterized a very low state of civilization; and such implements are only found among savage tribes living by the chase, or just beginning to cultivate the ground and to emerge from the condition of mere barbarians. Now, if the Mexicans got their civilization from Europe, it must have been from some people unacquainted with the use of iron, if not of bronze. Iron abounds in

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