y to say. They had knowledge of some of the
planets, and it is claimed that there is some reason to believe they
used aids to eyesight in studying the heavens, such as some suppose
were used by our Mound-Builders. A discovery made in Bolivia a few years
since is cited in support of this belief. It is the figure of a man in
the act of using a tube to aid vision, which was taken from an ancient
tomb. Mr. David Forbes, an English chemist and geologist, obtained it in
Bolivia, and carried it to England in 1864. William Bollaert describes
it as follows in a paper read to the London Anthropological Society:

"It is a nude figure, of silver, two inches and a half in height, on a
flat, pointed pedestal. In the right hand it has the mask of a human
face, but in the left a tube over half an inch in length, the narrow
part placed to the left eye in a diagonal position, as if observing some
celestial object. This is the first specimen of a figure in the act of
looking through a hollow tube directed to the heavens that has been
found in the New World. We can not suppose the Peruvians had any thing
that more nearly resembled a telescope. It was found in a chulpa, or
ancient Indian tomb, at Caquingora, near Corocoro (lat. 17 deg. 15' S.,
and long. 68 deg. 35' W.), in Bolivia." He forgets the astronomical
monument described by Captain Dupaix.

The art of writing in alphabetical characters, so far as appears, was
unknown to the Peruvians in the time of the Incas. No Peruvian books
existed at that time, and no inscriptions have been found in any of the
ruins. They had a method of recording events, keeping accounts, and
making reports to the government by means of the _quippu_. This was made
of cords of twisted wool fastened to a base prepared for the purpose.
These cords were of various sizes and colors, and every size and color
had its meaning. The record was made by means of an elaborate system of
knots and artificial intertwinings. The _amautas_ were carefully
educated to the business of understanding and using the _quippus_, and
"this science was so much perfected that those skilled in it attained
the art of recording historical events, laws, and decrees, so as to
transmit to their descendants the most striking events of the empire;
thus the _quippus_ could supply the place of documents." Each _quippu_
was a book full of information for those who could read it.

Among the _amautas_ memory was educated to retain and transmit to
post