Let us quote from Bernal Diaz, Chapter 157, without any comment, the following anecdote concerning the word _tepuzque_. “In the smelting of gold there was also allowed an eighth of alloy to every ounce to assist the men in the purchase of the necessaries of life. But we (the soldiers) derived no advantage from this, but on the contrary, it proved very prejudicial to us, for the merchants added the same percentage to the price of their goods and sold for five pesos what was only worth three, and so this alloy became, as the Indians term it, tepuzque or copper. This expression became so common among us, that we added it to the names of the distinguished cavaliers to express the worth of their character, as, for instance, we used to say, Señor Don Juan of so much tepuzque.” Footnote 7: Those who wish to be more extensively instructed in the Mexican system of numeration can read: _Leon y Gama_, Descripcion Hist. y Cronol. de las dos Piedras, Parte II., Appendice II., page 128, Edit. C. M. de Bustamante, Mexico, 1832. _Clavigero_, Storia antica di Messico, English translation by Ch. Cullen, London, 1807, Vol. I., Book 4, pag. 410; and an article recently published by _Orozco y Berra_, in Tom. I., Entrega 6ma of the Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico, 1879, page 258, which article is the most complete hitherto written on the subject, and is illustrated by 53 cuts. Footnote 8: There is, indeed, one passage in _Herrera (Antonio de)_, Hist. Gen. de los hechos de los Castellanos, Madrid, 1729, in his introductory Descripcion de las Indias, §§ Zacatula and Colima, where the working of copper mines by the indigenous people of these provinces is mentioned: “There are very abundant copper mines in this district, more towards the East, and near the port of Santiago. The Indians make _marvelous vessels_ (_vasos_) of this copper, because it is sweet (_dulce_). They have, however, still another kind of copper, which is hard, and which they employed for tilling the ground, instead of using iron, for they were not acquainted with iron before the Spaniards entered the kingdom.” As will be seen later, there is no doubt as to the latter assertion. But we fear the former to be an anachronism and the manufacturing of _vasos de cobre_ (copper vessels) will have to be assigned to the epoch after the Conquest, when the art of hammering was introduced and eagerly accepted and practised by the natives. Footnote 9: Carta de Hernan Cortes al Emperador, de la gran ciudad de Tenochtitlan, desta Nueva España, a 13 dias del mes de Octubre de 1524. Edicion _Gayangos_ (Don Pascual de), Paris, 1866. Footnote 10: Tachco, to-day Tasco, at a distance of 25 miles, S. S. W. from the Capital. A. v. Humboldt visited the memorable spot. See Essay s. l. Nouv. Espagne, Livre IV., Chap. xi.: “At the west of Tehuilotepec, is the Cerro de la Campañia, where Cortes began his work of investigation.”