The significance of the list is reinforced by our knowledge of certain parallel inventions which the Indian is presumed to have made without aid from the Old World. One is metallurgy. In South America, he discovered rather late how to smelt metals and make bronze. This lateness, according to Nordenskiöld, proves independent invention. If migrants brought over the knowledge of metallurgy, they left no trace of it along their journey, either in North America or in the South Seas; and there is no Indian folklore telling of how their forefathers or their gods brought bronze to the New World. Nordenskiöld makes the further point that, having invented the casting of metal, the Indians must also have invented the forms in which they cast it—the socketed ax, for example, the bell, and the pincers. On the basis of these inventions in metallurgy, and other inventions, Nordenskiöld writes, “It is surely a matter of logical reasoning to suppose that independent inventions may have been made by them in the realms of architecture, weaving, ceramics, etc.”[2] This would be a very much better argument, of course, if bronze had never been invented in the Old World. Then no boatload of Alexandrians could ever refute it. Nordenskiöld might have added agriculture to his list of unique Indian inventions—or rather the products of agriculture. The Indian discovered and cultivated plants unknown to the Old World. He developed special varieties suited to special conditions of soil and climate. In a sense he even invented one very important plant, for botanists have been unable to find any wild ancestor of Indian corn. NEW WORLD PLANTS AND PRODUCTS CULTIVATED FOOD CROPS maize (Indian corn)* white potato sweet potato tomato pumpkin squash peanut lima bean kidney bean tepary bean chili pepper cacao (for chocolate) agave (for pulque) sunflower seed custard apple pineapple chayote (vegetable) quinoa (cereal) strawberry arracacha (root) avocado manioc (for tapioca) Jerusalem artichoke WILD FOODSTUFFS persimmon papaw papaya wild rice guava arrowroot cashew nut jacote (plum) Paraguay tea (maté) soursop vanilla bean tonka bean capulin (a cherry) FIBERS New World cottons* henequen DYES cochineal (red)* annatto (red and yellow) anil (indigo blue) GUMS rubber copal balsam of Peru chicle DRUGS tobacco* coca* (for cocaine) cinchona (for quinine) cascara sagrada ipecac *Cultivated A more exhaustive list could include many natural products which the Indian used locally, such as flour made from acorn and mesquite. _American Plants and Their Cultivation_