The remarkable jade adze, generally known as the “Kunz adze,” was found in Oaxaca, Mexico, brought to the United States about 1890, and is now in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Of a light greenish-gray hue, with a slight tinge of blue, this jade artefact is 272 mm. long (10-13/16 inches), 153 mm. wide (6 inches) and 118 mm. thick (4-5/8 inches); its weight is 229.3 Troy ounces, nearly sixteen pounds avoirdupois. Rudely, but not unskilfully, carved upon its face is a grotesque human figure. Four small, shallow depressions, one under each eye and one near each hand, may have served to hold in place small gold films, but no trace of gold decoration is now extant. In its mechanical execution this adze offers evidence of considerable skill on the part of the Aztec lapidary, the polish equalling that of modern workers. In the fact that a large piece, which must apparently have weighed at least two pounds, has evidently been cut out of this implement by some one of its Indian owners, we can see a proof of the talismanic power ascribed to jadeite in Aztec times, for there can be little doubt that nothing less than a belief in the great virtue of jadeite coupled with the rarity of the material could have induced the mutilation of what must have been regarded in its time as a remarkable work of art.[377] The source of the prehistoric jade (nephrite and jadeite) found in Europe, and also of that worked into ornaments by the Indians before the Spanish Conquest of America, was long the subject of contention among mineralogists and archæologists. In Germany this question was denominated the _Nephritfrage_, and the most notable contribution to the discussion was the great scientific and scholarly work issued by Heinrich Fischer.[378] His conclusion was that as there was no evidence of the existence of these minerals outside of a few localities in Asia, the European and American supply must have been brought to these parts of the world from Asia, and that hence the presence of these jade artefacts in America clearly pointed to commercial intercourse at an early period between the American continent and Asia, and might be regarded as offering a strong argument in favor of an Asiatic origin for an American civilization. According to this theory the prehistoric jade objects found in Europe must have had a similar source, and would constitute a proof of the existence of traffic with remote points in Asia at a date long previous to that commonly accepted.