MEXICAN CARPENTER’S HATCHET 35 COPPER AXE OF TEPOZCOLULA 36 COPPER AXE OF TLAXIMALOYAN 36 COPPER TOOL, FOUND BY DUPAIX IN OAXACA 37 MAYA AHAU KATUN WHEEL 72 MAP SHOWING THE MOVEMENT OF THE MAYAS, AS STATED IN THE 78 MANUSCRIPT FOOTNOTE YUCATAN AXE, FROM LANDA 17 INDIAN BATTLE AXE, FROM OVIEDO 19 MEXICAN COPPER TOOLS. BY PHILIPP J. J. VALENTINI, PH.D. [_From the German, by Stephen Salisbury, Jr_.] [From Proceedings of American Antiquarian Society, April 30, 1879.] The subject of prehistoric copper mining, together with the trade in the metal and the process of its manufacture into implements and tools by the red men of North America, has engaged the attention of numerous investigators. It was while listening to an interesting paper on prehistoric copper mining at Lake Superior, read by Prof. Thomas Egleston before the Academy of Sciences, of New York, March 9, 1879, that the writer was reminded of a number of notes which he had made, some time previous, on the same subject. These notes, however, covered a department of research not included in the lecture of that evening. They were collected in order to secure all the material extant in relation to the copper products of Mexico and Central America. Nevertheless, this treatment of a subject so germain to ours, could not help imparting an impulse to a rapid comparison of the results of our own studies with those of others. It brought to light striking agreements, as well as disagreements, which existed in connection with the copper industries of the two widely separated races. On the one hand it appeared that both of these ancient people were unacquainted with iron; both were trained to the practise of war, and, strange to say, both had invariably abstained from shaping copper into any implement of war, the metal being appropriated solely to the uses of peace.