ETHNOLOGY. 419 



shape like the first described. The mounds of Xo. 2 are on the east 

 instead of the west side and are much smaller. The size of No. 2 is 120 

 feet by GO feet. 



The results of No. 1 were too unsatisfactory to induce me to make 

 any excavation of No. 2. In the mean time I had examined No. 3, about 

 three miles distant from No. 1, and on the other side of a high mountain 

 ridge, which at that place runs tongue-shaped into the plain of Guatemala. 



No. 3 was larger than either of the others, and has the mounds now 

 much reduced in height by continual cultivation and washing on the 

 west side. These are all the rectilinear works or embankments that I 

 have found or been able to hear of in the plains of Guatemala. No. 3, 

 however, is peculiar in this, that it commands a view of a small plain, 

 partly inclosed by nature and art, which has some mounds and stones 

 in it that are certainly singular if not interesting. This plain, partly 

 inclosed as stated, is in the form of a parallelogram, with its long sides 

 running north and south or nearly so.* It contains some curious stones 

 placed, evidently by design , in north and south lines, or nearly so, and 

 most if not all of them roughly wrought. I h^d been anxious to see 

 this, but had been deterred because I had heard it was almost inaccessi- 

 ble. One of the stones is a corner post in a street of the city, and two 

 others I had seen and examined in the yard and cattle lot of the hacienda 

 of Naranjo. Upon inquiring where they had been brought from, I was 

 told that the spot was about three miles in a straight line from Guate- 

 mala, but impossible to reach on horseback from the city, as impassable 

 "barrancas" or cafions intervened. It was noticed the stones seen 

 had all been wrought into six-sided posts or columns and were of a 

 dark-colored species of granite. 



In the partly inclosed plain there are three rows of stones still 

 standing in the ground. On the east a large isolated hill rises from 

 the plain to a height of probably 300 feet, which is so much the shape of 

 an artificial mound that its size and an examination of its surface 

 only prevent me from believing it is the work of man's hands. 



On the north side are several large mounds. On the west is an unu- 

 sually large oblong-shaped mound facing the hill or mountain on the 

 east and opposite to it. The distance of the bases apart is about 600 

 yards. 



On the right and left of this oblong-shaped mound is a continuation 

 of smaller mounds, two of them apparently connected with it, and the 

 others disconnected. This range of mounds extends a distance of sev- 

 eral hundred yards, so as to form, as I think, the west side of the inclo- 

 sure. 



On the east side is higher natural ground than the plain, and on the 

 southeast side, with its shorter side toward the plain, is the rectilinear 



* The variation from a due north and south line, according to my compass, was 

 about 5° to the west, and this variation seems to be uniform in all the mounds and 

 lines of stones herein mentioned. 



