Yet such traces of primitive arts are accompanied with remarkable evidence of progress in some directions. Humboldt remarks, in his _Vues des Cordillères_, on the surprising dexterity shown by the Peruvians in cutting the hardest stones; and, after reference to the observations of other travellers, he adds:—“I conjectured that the Peruvians had tools of copper, which, mixed with a certain proportion of tin, acquires great hardness. This conjecture has been justified by the discovery of an ancient Peruvian chisel, found at Vilcabamba, near Cuzco, in a silver mine worked in the time of the Incas. This valuable instrument, for which I am indebted to the friendship of the Padre Narcisse Gilbar, is four and seven-tenth inches long, and four-fifths of an inch broad. The metal of which it is composed has been analysed by M. Vauquelin, who found in it 0·94 of copper, and 0·06 of tin.” Unfortunately, the composition of Mexican and Peruvian bronzes has hitherto attracted so little attention, that it is impossible to obtain many accurate records of analyses, or to procure specimens to submit to chemical tests. Dr. J. H. Gibbon, of the United States Mint, favoured me with the analysis of another chisel or crowbar, brought from the neighbourhood of Cuzco by his son, Lieutenant Lardner Gibbon, who formed one of the members of the Amazon Expedition. Through the kind services of Mr. Thomas Ewbank, of the American Ethnological Society, I also obtained, in addition to results determined by himself, eight specimens of such Peruvian implements, though only a portion of them proved to be of metallic alloys. They were submitted to careful analysis by my colleague, Professor Henry Croft, and the results in reference to the bronzes are given on a subsequent page. Mr. Squier, in the Appendix to his _Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York_, engraves an implement found with various Peruvian knives and chisels, about the person of a mummy, taken by Mr. J. H. Blake, of Boston, from an ancient cemetery near Arica. On analysis, it proved to contain about four per cent. of tin. More recently I inspected a valuable collection of antiquities brought by Mr. Blake from Peru, including a variety of bronze implements; and he has favoured me with the following results:—“Many years ago, I made a series of analyses of bronze instruments, knives, chisels, hoes, etc., which I found in ancient cemeteries in Peru in connection with embalmed bodies. I have not been able to find my notes made at the time; but I know that they consisted of copper and tin only, and that the proportion of the latter varied from upwards of two to four per cent. After receiving your last letter, I made an analysis of a small knife found by me, with many other articles, with the body of a man, in the ancient cemetery near Arica, in South Peru. The handle is of the same metal as the blade, and at right angles with it, being joined at the middle. The end is fashioned to represent the head of a llama. On analysis, the composition proves to be: Copper, 97·87; tin, 2·13.” Dr. C. T. Jackson communicated another analysis of a “Chilian bronze instrument, probably a crowbar,” to the Boston Natural History Society. It contained 7·615 parts of tin, and is described by him as a bronze, well adapted for such instruments as were to be hammer-hardened.[81] The general results indicate a variable range of the tin alloy, from 2·130 to 7·615 per cent.; which, in so far as any general inference can be drawn from so small a number of examples, shows a more indeterminate and partially developed metallurgy than the analyses of primitive European bronzes disclose.