[Illustration:  MEXICAN ARROW-HEADS OF OBSIDIAN.]

The family-likeness that exists among the stone tools and weapons found in so many parts of the world is very remarkable.  The flint-arrows of North America, such as Mr. Longfellow’s arrow-maker used to work at in the land of the Dacotahs, and which, in the wild northern states of Mexico, the Apaches and Comanches use to this day, might be easily mistaken for the weapons of our British ancestors, dug up on the banks of the Thames.  It is true that the finish of the Mexican obsidian implements far exceeds that of the chipped flint and agate weapons of Scandinavia, and still more those of England, Switzerland, and Italy, where they are dug up in such quantities, in deposits of alluvial soil, and in bone-caves in the limestone rocks.  But this higher finish we may attribute partly to the superiority of the material; for the Mexicans also used flint to some extent, and their flint weapons are as hard to distinguish by inspection as those from other parts of the world.  We may reasonably suppose, moreover, that the skill of the Mexican artificer increased when he found a better material than flint to work upon.  Be this as it may, an inspection of any good collection of such articles shows the much higher finish of the obsidian implements than of those of flint, agate, and rock-crystal.  They say there is an ingenious artist who makes flint arrow-heads and stone axes for the benefit of English antiquarians, and earns good profits by it:  I should like to give him an order for ribbed obsidian razors and spear-heads; I don’t think he would make much of them.

[Illustration:  AZTEC KNIFE OF CHALCEDONY, MOUNTED ON A WOODEN HANDLE, WHICH IS SHAPED LIKE A HUMAN FIGURE WITH ITS FACE APPEARING THROUGH AN EAGLE-HEAD MASK, AND HAS BEEN INLAID WITH MOSAIC WORK OF MALACHITE, SHELL, AND TURQUOISE.  LENGTH 12-1/2 INCHES.]

The wonderful similarity of character among the stone weapons found in different parts of the world has often been used by ethnologists as a means of supporting the theory that this and other arts were carried over the world by tribes migrating from one common centre of creation of the human species.  The argument has not much weight, and a larger view of the subject quite supersedes it.

We may put the question in this way.  In Asia and in Europe the use of stone tools and weapons has always characterized a very low state of civilization; and such implements are only found among savage tribes living by the chase, or just beginning to cultivate the ground and to emerge from the condition of mere barbarians.  Now, if the Mexicans got their civilization from Europe, it must have been from some people unacquainted with the use of iron, if not of bronze.  Iron abounds in Mexico, not only in the state of ore, but occurring nearly pure in aerolites of great size, as at Cholula, and at Zacatecas, not far from the great ruins there; so that the only reason for their not using it must have been ignorance of its qualities.