628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



immense blocks of granite or porphyry of cyclopean construction, or 

 of mason-work of stone or brick, cove red with cement. All travelers 

 have remarked the solidity and elegance of the building. The facades 

 were regularly shaped, the joints well pointed, and the edges clean-cut. 

 Generally, they were adorned with a projecting cornice loaded with 

 rich ornaments in stucco. The possibly excessive monotony of the 

 architecture was relieved by square towers several stories high. Such 

 towers may be seen at Copan, Palenque, and Tikal ; the Casa de la 

 Culebra at Uxmal was crowned with thirteen turrets. The architects 

 were also careful in placing statues, pilasters, caryatides, and bas-re- 

 liefs on the facades ; and important mural paintings have been de- 

 scribed at Chichen-Itza. They represent processions of men and ani- 

 mals, combats, struggles between man and the tiger or the serpent, 

 trees, and houses. One painting, the only one relating to navigation, 

 represents a boat somewhat like a Chinese junk. 



" The sculptures that adorned these buildings," the marquis con- 

 tinues, "present so many differences in style and execution that we can 

 hardly believe them the work of the same race, or that they represent 

 the same civilization. In some cases they depict strange idols in incor- 

 rect forms, men wearing tigers' heads, an alligator holding in his jaws 

 a figure with a human head and an animal's extremities, or a gigantic 

 frog with his paws terminating in a cat's claws. Besides such mon- 

 sters, we recollect at Copan a statue wearing the highest expression of 

 Maya art, in which we know not whether to be most astonished at the 

 oddity of the conception, the richness of the ornamentation, or the 

 fineness of the execution. At Palenque we may see a statue with a 

 placid expression that would not be out of place in the palace of a 

 Pharaoh ; and the sepulchral stone of Chac-Mol, recently found at Chi- 

 chen, the bas-reliefs of Santa Lucia, and other works, are not discord- 

 ant with modern art. These striking contrasts, while they bring no 

 explanation, add, in the endless problems they raise, a new attraction 

 to American archaeology." 



+ 



THE EEMEDIES OF NATURE. 



By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D. 

 CATARRH. PLEURISY. CROUP. 



THE progress of the healing art, as distinguished from certain ster- 

 ile branches of medical science, can be best measured by the 

 progress of our insight into the causes of special maladies. For the 

 accidental discovery of a " specific " means generally nothing but the 

 discovery of a method for suppressing special symptoms of a disease. 

 Quinine subdues chills, but does not prevent a relapse of febrile affec- 



