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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



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to dislodge the delicate portions of carvings that the long, slender yet tena- 

 ciously strong rootlets might have grown into and wedged apart metres 

 deep in the mingled mass of disintegrated mortar and worked stone sections. 

 Long years of experience with my work, have made good practical 

 archaeologists of some of the workmen, not a fragment of carved stone, 

 however small, within reason of course, escapes their keen eyes — a prelimi- 

 nary fumbling, a little turning over in the hand, a speculative eyeing of a 



nearby fractured carving, and then the 

 fragment fits into its place while the 

 workman with a grunt of satisfaction 

 goes on with his digging. 



The making of the molds with the 

 temperature at 130 in the sun and no 

 shade available, is not precisely a recrea- 

 tion but all things that have a begin- 

 raj j*' ning have an end as well, and in time in 



spite of the obstacles seen and unfore- 

 seen, the undertaking was completed and 

 the final processes of trimming, binding 

 and waterproofing the paper molds com- 

 menced. Then the trunks of xpasac 

 wood, that had been cut in the forest 

 and drying for months, were sawn into 

 inch boards and made up into strong 

 wooden cases according to the measure 

 of the various mold sections. Large 

 quantities of xkusac grass, a very fine 

 packing grass, had been cut, cured and 

 stored, and with this the heavy plaster 

 molds were packed so carefully and so 

 securely that it seemed as if they could 

 defy the efforts of the most reckless bag- 

 gage-smasher and freight-wrecker. 



Careful cartage over the rough frontier 

 roads and careful handling under personal 

 supervision at the port of Progreso, made 

 more than probable the safe arrival of the 

 twenty-seven large cases containing all 

 the molds, both paper and plaster, to the 

 store-rooms of the Museum, where they 

 now lie a, la disposition de Ud. 



