instead of making crucibles, melt their metal in suitable fragments of
Pueblo pottery, which may be picked up around ruins in many localities
throughout the Navajo country or purchased from the Pueblo Indians.

The moulds in which they cast their ingots, cut in soft sandstone with a
home-made chisel, are so easily formed that the smith leaves them behind
when he moves his residence. Each mould is cut approximately in the
shape of the article which is to be wrought out of the ingot cast in it,
and it is greased with suet before the metal is poured in. In Figs. 2
and 3, Pl. XVIII, are represented pieces of sand-stone, graven for
molds, now in my possession. The figures are one-third the dimensions of
the subjects. In the middle cavity or mould shown in Fig. 2, Pl. XVIII,
was cast the ingot from which was wrought the arrow-shaped handle of
the powder-charger shown in Pl. XIX; in the lower cavity depicted in the
same figure was moulded the piece from which the bowl of this charger
was formed. The circular depression, delineated in the lower right
corner of Fig. 3, Pl. XVIII, gave form to the ingot from which the sides
of the canteen-shaped tobacco-case (Fig. 6) was made.

Tongs are often made by the Navajo silversmiths. One of these which I
saw had a U-shaped spring joint, and the ends were bent at right angles
downwards, so as more effectually to grasp the flat-sided crucible.
Often nippers or scissors are used as tongs.

Ordinary scissors, purchased from the whites, are used for cutting:
their metal after it is wrought into thin plates. The metal saw and
metal shears do not seem as yet to have been imported for their benefit.
Some of the more poorly provided smiths use their scissors also for
tongs, regardless or ignorant of consequences, and when the shears lose
their temper and become loose-jointed and blunt, the efforts of the