274 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



narrow break in the floor evidenced the trench that the tireless student Dr. 

 August Le Plongeon dug when he interred the fourteen Atlantean figures to 

 keep them safe from vandal hands. An empty marmalade can was the 

 souvenir left by Mr. A. P. Maudslay, now president of the Royal Anthro- 

 pological Institute of Great Britain, and I was almost ready to affirm that 

 it was the same can that I helped him to empty nearly a quarter of a 

 century before. A daintily marked crystal flask that once held citrate of 

 iron, could only have been the property of Miss Adele Breton, the gifted 

 artist-student whose copy of the mural paintings within the inner chamber 

 of this temple are as beautiful as they are exact. Other finds were of other 

 later visitors but more prosaic and so less interesting. 



With the cleaning off of all this modern and near modern accumulation, 

 the steel probe, the whisk broom and the trowel laid bare surfaces and 

 outlines untouched by modern students. These were followed up until the 

 full original outlines of the entire front platform were clearly defined and 

 worked out. 



Carefully disposing of the accumulation removed, that it might not fall 

 upon and so disturb the true sequence of the material below in which exca- 

 vation was to be made later, the carved stone work to the right and left 

 of the wide front stairway and the entirely new carvings brought to light 

 by this clearing were all carefully cleaned, photographed and measured 

 as preliminary processes to that of making the molds of plaster or of paper. 

 It was found that the wide stairway in front of the temple platform consists 

 of four steps (excluding the base and platform planes) each twenty-seven 

 feet long with an eight inch tread and a twelve inch riser. These narrow 

 treads and high risers are characteristic of a sandal-wearing people. 



To the right and left of this stairway and binding it in place are large 

 stone plates, one on each side, and each plate has upon its face a paneled 

 carving. Beyond each of these stone plates which are inclined at the same 

 angle as the stairway, are recessed walls slightly inclining from the vertical 

 inward toward the temple. The wall on the left looking from the temple 

 entrance is still in place although portions of the handsome stone slabs are 

 missing but of those on the right, only the terminal post is visible and that 

 is lying mutilated and prostrate. Probably the fall of the facade mass 

 pushed the stones from their places and broke them into unrecognizable 

 fragments on the hard surface far beneath. 



It was during the excavations of this mass of accumulations upon the 

 front platform of the temple that we came upon evidence of the fact that the 

 two beautifully carved stone serpent heads found later in the fallen masses 

 below, when in their places rested one on each side of the stairway and 

 directly over the paneled and carved stone plates. 



The symbol of the feathered serpent seems to have been to the New 

 World races what the cross was to the Old World. The origin of both as 

 religious symbols is buried in mists of antiquity so dense that modern man 



