er was mined; the probabilities are that this was done in a very
superficial way. Whenever, by chance, they discovered a vein of copper,
they probably worked it to an easy depth, and then abandoned it. M.
Charney speaks of one such locality, discovered in 1873. In this case
they had made an opening eleven feet long, five feet wide, and three
feet deep. To judge from appearances, they first heated the rock,
and then perhaps sprinkled it with water, and thus caused it to split
up.<42> This is about all we can discover of their Metallic Age. It
falls very far short of the knowledge of metallurgy enjoyed by the
Europeans of the Bronze Age; and, with the exception of working gold
and silver, it was not greatly in advance of the powers of the
North American aborigines.<43> Certainly no trace of mining has been
discovered at all on the scale of the ancient mines in Michigan.

A few words as to some of their other arts, and we will pass on to other
topics. In manufacturing native pottery, they are spoken of as having
great skill. The sedentary Indians everywhere were well up in that sort
of work.<44> They knew how to manufacture cotton cloth, as well as cloth
from other articles. We have stated that paper furnished an important
article of tribute. They made several kinds of paper. One author states
that they made paper from the membrane of trees--from the substance that
grows beneath the upper bark.<45> But they also used for this purpose
a plant, called the maguey plant. This was a very valuable plant to the
aborigines, since we are told that the natives managed to extract nearly
as great a variety of useful articles from it as does an inhabitant of
the East Indies from his cocoa palm. Amongst other articles, they made
paper. For this paper, we are told, "the leaves were soaked, putrefied,
and the fibers washed, smoothed, and extended for the manufacture of
thin as well as thick paper."<46>

They used feathers for plumes, fans, and trimmings for clothing. The
articles the Spaniards are most enthusiastic in praising is that variety
of work known as feather mosaic. They took very great pains with this
sort of work. The workman first took a piece of cloth, stretched it, and
painted on it, in brilliant colors, the object he wished to reproduce.
Then, with his bunch of feathers before him, he carefully took feather
after feather, arranging them according to size, color, and other
details, and glued each feather to the cloth. The Sp