186 THE CLIMATIC FACTOR AS ILLUSTRATED IN ARID AMERICA. 



scattered, barbarous Indians and a temporary population of "chideros," or men who come 

 for a few months to gather the sap of the zapote tree for the purpose of converting it into 

 chewing gum. The chicleros are employed on a great concession, which covers several 

 thousand square miles, but whose headquarters at Esmeralda boast of nothing more than 

 four or five palm-thatched sheds. Starting from this place, we rode a mile along a trail so 

 narrow and blocked with vegetation that the Mexican guides had to hew down almost 

 innumerable dead limbs and lianas, although the trail had been in use only the jjreceding 

 year. At the top of a small ridge OAcrlooking the southern end of Lake Kichankanab we 

 came upon the little ruins of Elemax. When one of the attendants had chopped away the 

 vines from the first structure it proved to be a mass of stones forming a mound measiu'ing 

 about 65 feet by 35. Clearly there once stood here a solid structure in the usual stj^le of 

 ancient Yucatan, a series of rooms roofed with steep-sided, flat-topped, false arches ending 

 in capstones instead of keystones. The surface stones, both inside and out, were carefully 

 smoothed and fitted, and those on the corners were neatly rounded. Twenty feet away 

 lay a similar mound, 90 feet by 55, and others were located all around. Our guide 

 conducted us to the end of this particular group of ruins. We followed a winding forest 

 trail made by chicleros on their way to find zapote trees which they could tap for gum. 

 The trail, of course, was made without the slightest reference to ruins; moreover, the 

 undergrowth of the forest is so dense that the largest sort of mound 100 feet away would 

 be as invisible as though on the other side of the world; and small mounds are hidden at a 

 distance of 20 or 30 feet. Nevertheless, in the space of scarcely a mile we saw at least 

 20 mounds. Manifestly, if the vegetation were cleared away many more would be in sight. 

 The guide stated that in his hunting trips he comes across similar mounds very frequently, 

 "everywhere," as he put it. Among those that we saw the great majority were small 

 structures, probably houses, but a few of larger size appear to have been temples. Near 

 the temples stand two structures, now only about 15 feet high, which seem to have been 

 pyramids designed for sacrificial purposes or for some other rehgious rites. The whole 

 aspect of the ruins is like that of those in the jungle region farther north, save that here 

 in the forest the degree of destruction is greater and the original magnificence less. It is 

 possible that all of the houses were not occupied at once, but even if this is so, the ruins 

 clearly represent a considerable population of permanently settled agricultural people who 

 went to the trouble of hewing stone for their temples and other public structures. They 

 must have cleared the forest and raised crops in the clearings permanently. 



Similar and far more striking phenomena in other parts of the Maya country point to 

 an even denser population in the deep forests. For instance, Palenque, in the Mexican 

 state of Chiapas, southwest of Yucatan, and Tikal, farther to the east, are famous as the 

 sites of some of the most magnificent ruins in America, ruins which not only are massive, 

 but are beautifully and elaborately carved. They are located in what is described as the 

 densest kind of tropical forest. The size of the ruins and their large amount of sculpture 

 indicate that the surrounding cities must have been long inhabited by a dense population. 

 Moreover, the people must have been highly industrious or they never could have accom- 

 plished such great results, especially when they had no iron tools to aid them — nothing but 

 stone, so far as has yet been determined. 



All this may perhaps seem alien to our main subject of changes of climate, but it is by 

 no means so, for it raises a great question. To-day, as we have seen, the dampness of 

 the forest, its equable temperature, its fevers, and its over-exuberant vegetation prevent 

 its conquest not only by the primitive Indians, but by the Mexicans or the Spaniards. 

 Nowhere, under similar conditions, has any modern race succeeded in really overcoming 

 the tropical forest as distinguished from the tropical jungle. Yet long ago the ancient 

 Mayas must have cleared and cultivated great areas of what is now dense forest beyond 

 the power of modern man. 



