What is characteristic of Uruapan are the placques and table-tops of wood, decorated with floral designs in brilliant colors, upon a background of dark-green, pink, blue, yellow, or black.

This art is in the hands of a few persons, some pure indians.

Visiting them, we found the wooden placques and table-tops are brought from one of the mountain villages of the Tarascans; they are first covered thickly with the background color; upon this the pattern is pencilled and then cut out in the lacquered surface; the color, mixed with oil and _aje_, as with other substances, is then applied with the finger-tips to fill the cut patterns; the lustre is then brought out by careful rubbing.

The work is striking, and is prized throughout the Republic.
In the same quarter of the town, where this local industry is carried on, are many goitrous persons.

The disease seems to be confined to the one district, but there perhaps one-half the people have it, most of them to but a slight degree.