248 



NATURE 



[December 21, 191 1 



Museum of Harvard University, under the auspicrs of 

 which th<' cxpt'T-iiiniK. ui-rc iinfl«Tt;ik<Mi, Thi- first ;iiid 



Fig. 1. — View from Temple No. i looking west. 



second of these expeditions were conducted by that 



veteran explorer, Mr. Teobert Maler, and the third 



by one of the most prominent of the 



younger generation of Americanists, 



Dr. Alfred M. Tozzcr. Owing to 



some unfortunate friction between 



Mr. Maler and the Peabody 



Museum, Mr. Maler 's plan of the 



ruins and some of the detail plans 



of the buildings he describes were 



not obtained for this volume, and 



it is therefore difficult to do 



full justice to his share of th<' 



work. 



During Mr. Maler's preliminatx 

 expedition (1895) he remained only 

 eight days at the ruins. On his 

 next expedition (1904) he was 

 camped there for four months, from 

 August to November. As these are 

 the rainy months, he certainly 

 avoided the great difficulty attend- 

 ing a residence at Tikal during the 

 dry season, which is the scarcity of 

 water; on the other hand, four 

 months' camping in a tropical forest 

 during the rains must have entailed 

 great hardship, and it must often 

 have been very difficult to carry on 

 any work at all. 



It is to be regretted that Dr. 

 Tozzer's report is not accompanied, 

 as is Mr. Maler's, by a personal 

 narrative; moreover, he gives no 

 indication of the length of his stay 

 at the ruins. Personal narrative 

 may be of no particular scientific 

 interest to the archaeologist, but it 

 is of the greatest value to future explorers to 

 know what difficulties have to be overcome and how 

 NO. 2199, VOL. 88] 



much work can be accomplished within a speciiii 

 time. 



Mr, Maler discovered a consid 

 ! number of hitherto unknown 



tured stelae, and both his report ai 

 Dr. Tozzer's are furnished with mai 

 detailed plans of buildings. 



Dr. Tozzer was accompanied 

 Mr. Merwin, who observed tl 

 a/imuths of the front and back wat 

 of the five principal temples with 

 transit instrument, but the sketc 

 plan printed in this volume does not' 

 show the buildings plotted according 

 to these bearings, and although it 

 shows much that was previously un- 

 recorded, a more accurate survey of 

 the site is to be desired ; in fact, 

 although the work accomplished by 

 Mr. Maler and Dr. Tozzer adds con- 

 siderably to our knowledge, much yet 

 remains to be done at Tikal. 



Dr. Tozzer does not say whether he 

 made paper squeezes of the carvings 

 and inscriptions, but it is to be hoped 

 that moulds were made, for, excel- 

 lent as Mr. Maler's photographs are, 

 photographs alone do not suffice for 

 a careful study of the carving, and 

 plaster casts are absolutely necessar}'. 

 Mr. Maler says that Tikal covered 

 an area of four to five kilometres 

 square, but surely this requires veri- 

 fication by further measurements. 

 Dr. Tozzer's sketch map, which in- 

 cludes all the buildings described in the r- 

 ports, measures less than i x i| kilometres. Isolat* 



Fir,. 2.— Circular Stone Altar .-it Tikal. 



buildings may be found at a distance of two 

 kilometres from the centre of the city, but this does 



