518 ARCHEOLOGY 



catastrophe having occurred on the day matlacili ail of the score 

 atemoztli. Perhaps this corresponds to the sinking of Atlantis. 

 The second was the Sun of Air, or Ehecatonatiuh, in all probability 

 relative to the glacial epoch, which lasted 810 years, ending on 

 the day ce oceloil of the score pachtli. The third was the Sun of 

 Fire, or Fletonatiuh, corresponding to the epoch of the great vol- 

 canic eruptions; it was 964 years in length, having ended on the 

 day chicunahui ollin of the score xilomaniliztli. And lastly, the Sun 

 of Land, or Tlaltonatiuh, which extended over a period of 1046 

 years. In this way archeology has revealed to us that the Nahua 

 existence race was in 3877 years before the Christian Era, which 

 would make it to-day 5781 years. 



It is evident to all that the question of the migrations of the 

 first peoples is one of the gravest, and which has always occupied 

 the attention of scholars. So far as it is concerned, there exist 

 ancient traditions, of general acceptance in the Old World, but which 

 do not satisfactorily explain man's march across time and space. 



On the continent of America, and especially in the territory em- 

 bracing the republics of Mexico and the United States of to-day, 

 there recur with great frequency traditions with regard to the 

 coming of certain races which traveled south from the latter to the 

 former. Historians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 

 present us with the course which the journey of the Toltecs took; 

 while those of the sixteenth had already mentioned the pilgrimage 

 of the Aztecs. But these are relatively modern facts which are 

 within our era: even so, however, the journey of the Mexicas has 

 only within very recent times been definitely fixed, owing to the 

 exact deciphering of the painting known as the Historical Hiero- 

 glyphical Chart of the Aztec Pilgrimage. 



But still more is due to archeology. I have already, in my Ancient 

 History of Mexico, twenty years ago, called attention to the following 

 facts. Everything tends to prove the very ancient union of the 

 continents, and the existence of Atlantis. In those remote ages 

 negroes were to be found in our territory, as is proved by the colos- 

 sal head of Hueyapan and the gigantic axe from the coasts of Vera 

 Cruz. From the most ancient times a race appears on our con- 

 tinent, perhaps autochthonous, monosyllabic and represented in 

 Mexico by the Otomies, remnants of which are to be found to the 

 present day. The first foreign invasion, at any rate so far as the 

 north is concerned, coming probably over Atlantis, took place cen- 

 turies ago, and was of a race of agglutinative speech, which was after- 

 wards called Nahua. The three following facts, all well substantiated, 

 are worthy of note: that there exists a Tula in the south of Russia; 

 that in the Caucasus there are vestiges of an arithmetic counted by 

 scores; and that there are to be found in that region a people whose 



