Minerals abound in both Americas. It was gold and silver that drew hither the greedy Spanish freebooters. The civilized nations knew mining, smelting, casting and forging. They used gold, silver, copper, brass, lead, &c.; collected and prized gems, emeralds, agats, volcanic glass, &c. Even the less civilized tribes of North America used copper and lead, clays for pipes, pottery, &c. Iron was scarce because so hard to melt, and highly prized; but iron-rings have been found as jewels around the wrists of skeletons.
Metallic coins were little known except in Central America; but bits of silver, gold, tin, iron, were used as such. The other mediums of exchange were skins, mats, nuts, cacao, shells, beads, mosaic works, &c. Commerce was well known to many nations; traders went 500 miles to exchange commodities in Florida, Mexico, Yucatan, Peru, &c. Navigators went by sea for the same purpose all over the Antilles, coast of Peru, and in the great streams. It is thus that were found many strange and foreign objects, jewels, medals, metals, &c., all over America, and in early tombs.
5. _Ethnography._ This new science which undertakes to describe nations, reckons already many peculiar branches. Anthropography or the knowledge of physical mankind. Philology or the comparative study of human speech and languages. Besides the nameless branch attending to the moral ideas, arts, institutions, manners, civilization, governments and religions of mankind; which might be called moral ethnography.
All these studies become the philosophy of history, and shall duly command my attention. Some writers neglect them altogether; others, like Robertson, do not know how to collect and accumulate facts instead of systems: Rollin has shown in his Ancient History, how useful moral ethnography may be as an auxiliary: although he omitted philology and physical facts.
I have studied the men of all the parts of the world, in order to know and compare them, better than had been done. All the errors on the histories of nations, proceed commonly from the slender or partial views acquired or admitted by the writers. There is much to glean on the ethnography of modern nations, and therefrom we may ascend to ancient ethnography. It would be needful to study well the physical and moral features of all; the shapes of bodies, skulls, faces and limbs; the complexions of the skin, hairs and eyes; with the casual or permanent varieties.