In the midst of an earthen tripod, surrounded by smoke and flames, we perceive a small disk of a yellow color. Our attention is called to the peculiar mark imprinted on the surface of the disk. Upon searching in Lord Kingsborough’s Collection, Vol. V., page 112, plate 71, where the interpretation of the little picture is given, we learn, that the man sitting by the tripod, is meant to be a goldsmith. Hence we conclude the disk must be understood to mean a round piece of gold, and that very probably the mark printed on it, was the usual symbolical sign for gold.[13] At the right of the tripod sits a man wrapped in his mantle, no doubt the master of the work-shop; for the addition of a flake flying from his mouth, as the typical sign for language or command, gives us a right to suppose that we have before us the so-called _temachtiani_, or master of the trade. At the left side crouches the apprentice, _tlamachtilli_. He holds in his right hand a staff, one end of which is in his mouth and the other is placed in the crucible. _Tlapitzqui_, in the Nahoatl language means at the same time a flute player and a melter of metal. This etymological version therefore conveys the idea, that the staff held by the smelter signifies a pipe or tube used for increasing heat by blowing the fire, as the staff is similar to a long pipe or flute and is held in the mouth of the workman. In his left hand he holds a similar staff, but there is no means of recognizing whether it is a stick for stirring the embers, or a tube to be used alternately with the other. Now, we shall be permitted to draw a conclusion from this process of smelting gold as to the manner of smelting copper. The process must have been exactly the same with both. For, if the Mexican goldsmith, with the aid of a blowpipe, was able to increase the heat of the fire to such a degree as to make gold fusible, a heat which requires 1,100° C., he cannot have found greater difficulties in melting copper, which requires nearly the same degree of heat; and tin, which is far more easily fusible, could have been treated in the same way. Melting was followed by casting into forms or moulds, and these moulds must have been of stone. This might be concluded from the language of Torquemada and Gomara.[14] The words “_by placing one stone above another one_” are too clear to leave the least doubt as to what the author meant. This process will account for the absolute identity we had the opportunity to observe existing between certain trinkets of the same class, coming chiefly from Nicaragua and Chiriqui. No specimens of a mould, however, have come to our view, or have been heard of as existing in any collection, probably because whenever they were met by the “_huaqueros_,” they did not recognize them as such, and threw them away.