340 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLOKATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1871. 



regions which in their hideous noises, their 

 barrenness and desolation, and the frowning 

 and sometimes trembling cliffs, give the trav- 

 eller a vivid idea of the horrors of Bunyan's 

 Valley of the Shadow of Death. All these 

 regions, and particularly the last named, have 

 given evidence for some time past of the re- 

 vivification of volcanic action. In February, 

 1872, this section in the neighborhood of 

 Owen's Kiver and Lake has been the scene of 

 the most violent and continuous earthquakes 

 and commotions of mountain, river, lake, 

 and plain, ever witnessed in the United States 

 since their first settlement. It was computed 

 that there were over 7,000 distinct shocks of 

 earthquake in the space of two weeks ; huge 

 fissures were rent in the earth, and for a space 

 of several miles a perpendicular wall of earth 

 was raised where there had previously been a 

 plain ; a hill of considerable height was moved 

 forward some miles ; the water of both river 

 and lake ebbed almost to dryness, and then re- 

 turned in great volume and overflowed the ad- 

 jacent country ; and the whole country, before 

 barren and sulphurous, became infinitely more 

 forbidding than it was previous to the earth- 

 quake. Thirty or forty persons, and perhaps 

 more, were killed ; and the sparseness of the 

 population prevented a more terrible calamity. 



3. In MEXICO, the explorers have found 

 little that was new or of special interest during 

 the year 1871. The American minister, Hon. 

 T. H. Nelson, has transmitted to Governor Ba- 

 ker, of Indiana, for the library of that State, a 

 very accurate and carefully-moulded cast of 

 the celebrated " Calendar Stone," the most 

 interesting relic of Aztec civilization, which, 

 after being buried for two hundred and sixty- 

 nine years, was discovered in December, 1790, 

 and for preservation built into one of the but- 

 tresses of the cathedral in the city of Mexico. 

 The material of the calendar stone is an ex- 

 ceedingly hard species of basalt, found only at 

 a great distance from the city of Mexico. It 

 is 11 feet 8 inches in diameter, and about 2 feet 

 6 inches in thickness. It is the only record 

 preserved of the Aztec method of computing 

 time, a method found to correspond very closely 

 with that of the Yncas of Peru. 



The Aztec civil year consisted of eighteen 

 months of twenty days each, to which were 



added five complementary days, that were not 

 considered as belonging to any month, and 

 were regarded as unlucky by the Aztecs. At 

 the expiration of each cycle of fifty-two years, 

 twelve days and a half were interpolated to 

 compensate for the six hours annually lost. 



The conclusion of each cycle was a memo- 

 rable event in Aztec annals. The perpetual 

 fires in the temples, and all the fires in private 

 dwellings, were extinguished ; they destroyed 

 much property, and literally " clothed them- 

 selves in sackcloth and ashes." At midnight 

 of the first day of the new cycle, imposing 

 religious ceremonies were celebrated by the 

 people in mass, including the sacrifice of human 

 victims, and the lighting of a new fire by fric- 

 tion from a wooden shield placed on the breast 

 of a victim. The fire was then communicated 

 to torches borne by thousands of runners, who 

 conveyed it to the remotest settlements of the 

 Aztec Empire. The "Calendar Stone" has 

 these several items of the day, the number of 

 the months, the complementary days, and the 

 period of the cycle, represented in sculptured 

 hieroglyphics on its face. 



4. CENTRAL AMEEIOA. The attention of the 

 Central American States has been occupied 

 during 1871, as during the preceding year, in 

 the effort to demonstrate the practicability of 

 the several proposed routes for a ship-canal 

 between the Atlantic and Pacific ; or, failing 

 this, of another railway route competing suc- 

 cessfully with that via Aspinwall and Panama. 

 No great progress has been made during the 

 year, but, in the early months of 1872, Presi- 

 dent Grant appointed a scientific commission 

 to examine and investigate carefully all the 

 known facts in regard to these various routes, 

 and report whether any of them were feasible, 

 and the probable cost of construction. In the 

 previous volumes of the ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA 

 the surveys of several of these routes have 

 been described, and their feasibility discussed ; 

 but it may not be amiss to give here a table, 

 prepared by Dr. Moritz "Wagner, of the several 

 routes, with the length of canal required, and 

 the height of the water-shed to be cut through 

 or tunnelled; premising, however, that other 

 considerations than these must, in some cases 

 at least, enter into the question of making up 

 an opinion as to the best route. 



* This is substantially the route of the Panama Railroad. 



