In Prescott's Mexico, Collier & Son, New York, 1900 edition, Vol. I, p. 59, sone finds the unsubstantiated statement that Torquemada came to the New World about the middle of the sixteenth century. On p. 118, this same author, speaking of the currency used in commercial transactions, mentions bits of tin cut in the form of a T. On page 408 of the same volume, Prescott has these same pieces of tin stamped with a character resembling a T, which is also erroneous, as no such assertion was ever made by any one, and is, most likely, an error in translation.

Among the most recent publications dealing with scraper money of the Zapotecs was one published in Mexico City by Dr. Nicolás León, a Mexican archaeologist and numismatist of considerable repute. On page 27 of his book, entitled Lyobaa ó Mictlán —Guía Histórico-Desriptiva, México, 1901, one finds the following under the heading of COPPER UTENSILS:

"Among the characteristic utensils of art in Mitla there exist samples of a kind of axe, objects in the shape of a Greek tau made of beaten copper. They are commonly found in the tombs and in such numbers that a friend of ours, who owns a small farm near Cuilapa, was able to have the cylinders of his sugar mill made of them, for grinding sugar cane. They are of different sizes and it is thought that they were used as money. Mr. Holmes thinks that in view of their shape and thickness they were used as head ornaments if well polished, or they may have been religious symbols. We saw these instruments which are vulgarly called 'tajaderas' in Oaxaca, used in the town of Mixtepec to make kitchen pottery and other objects of clay."

Sahagún says: "the Mexican king gave to his merchant soldiers dispatched on one of their politico-commercial expeditions, sixteen hundred quauhtli (eagles) to trade with" and Bustamante supposes them to have been the copper pieces known as tajaderas of whch so much has been said in the preceding paragraphs. Brasseur believes that from the small value of the copper and the large amount of fabrics purchased with the quauhtli, such eagles must have been made of gold. See the frontispiece. The specimen illustrated is made of gold and is the property of Mrs. Adelaide Gillis McCormick of Los Angles, California.

The author has seen on two different occasions gold planchets about one millimeter in thickness, twelve or fourteen centimeters in height, by eight or nine centimeters in width, representing well carved or molded figures of humans and animals, also several gold figures which were considered Aztec deities. It is quite possible that the eagles or quauhtli mentioned by Sahagún were of this type or they might have been similar to the gold eagles of the Incas, a specimen of which appears in the frontispiece.