Tools and machinery are associated with many human activities, including agriculture, warfare, transportation and the building of structures. A tool is “a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.” Nephi made “tools” from the ore he “did molten out of the rock” to construct his ship “after the manner” which the Lord had “shown unto him” (1 Ne. 17:9–10, 16). He also taught his “people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance” (2 Ne. 5:15). Jarom, the son of Enos, recorded that his people “became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground” (Jarom 1:8). Machinery in older English referred to contrivances or structures of any kind created skillfully and inventively to serve a particular purpose, including a vehicle or conveyance (usually wheeled), especially one drawn by a horse or horses, or other draft animals.

The Jaredites “were exceedingly industrious, and they did buy and sell and traffic one with another, that they might get gain. And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore, they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work” (Ether 10:7, 12, 22–23). The Jaredites “did make all manner of tools to till the earth, … and they did make all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts. And they did make all manner of weapons of war. And they did work all manner of work of exceedingly curious workmanship” (Ether 10:25–27).

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. And the ores of zinc, copper, silver, gold and iron—the named ores in the Book of Mormon—are all found in many locations in Baja California and have been mined from the time the Jesuit fathers first reached the peninsula in the late 1600s.

Clearly, the Book of Mormon people were not masons working all manner of stone work, but were metal workers making all manner of tools and machinery, and artisans making buildings with all manner of wood (timber), metal and sometimes cement.