s long and three
inches in diameter, with a quadrangular hole in the center about one
inch square. The bellows is worked by horizontal movements of the arm. I
have seen among the Navajos one double-chambered bellows with a
sheet-iron tweer. This bellows was about the same size as the single
chambered one described above. It was also moved horizontally, and by
means of an iron rod passing from one end to the other and attached to
the disks, one chamber was opened at the same time that the other was
closed, and _vice versa_. This gave a more constant current of air than
the single-chambered implement, but not as steady a blast as the bellows
of our blacksmiths. Such a bellows, too, I have seen in the Pueblo of
Zuni.

For an anvil they usually use any suitable piece of iron they may happen
to pick up, as for instance an old wedge or a large bolt, such as the
king-bolt of a wagon. A wedge or other large fragment of iron may be
stuck in the ground to steady it. A bolt is maintained in position by
being driven into a log. Hard stones are still sometimes used for anvils
and perhaps they were, at one time, the only anvils they possessed.

Crucibles are made by the more careful smiths of clay, baked hard, and
they are nearly the same shape as those used by our metallurgists,
having three-cornered edges and rounded bottoms. They are usually about
two inches in every dimension.

Fig. 1, Pl. XVIII represents one of ordinary shape and size, which I
have in my collection. The Navajos are not good potters; their
earthenware being limited to these crucibles and a few unornamented
water-jars; and it is probably in consequence of their inexperience in
the ceramic art that their crucibles are not durable. After being put in
the fire two or three times they swell and become very porous, and when
used for a longer time they often crack and fall to pieces. Some smiths,
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.