214 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



eum, Washington, D. C, by Charles Rau." Among the many useful illustra- 

 tions in that volume is a reconstruction of the Palenque Group by Mr. Trill, done 

 under the eye and by the direction of Dr. Rau. From this restoration, doubtless, 

 Professor Holden has drawn his material. 



Now for the "east inscription, joined to Mr. Catherwood's in a clumsy fash- 

 ion." I will quote from Dr. Rau : " Among the objects of archaeological inter- 

 est transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, in 1858, from the United States 

 Patent Office, were several fragments composing a large rectangular stone slab, 

 covered with glyphic designs in bas-relief, which had been presented to the 

 National Institute by Mr. Charles Russell, Consul of the United States at Lajuna, 

 on the Island of Carmen, State of Campeche, Mexico. The fragments had been 

 obtained at Palenque, and reached Washington in 1842, * * * , 



The National Institute received at the same time a letter from Mr. Russell, dated 

 Lajuna, March 18, 1842, in which he stated he had sent to the National Institute 

 per ship "Eliza and Susan," fragments of a tablet from the ruins of Palenque, 

 and by the " Gil Bias" other pieces of the same tablet which made it complete " 



Mr. Titian R. Peale asseris that the pieces exactly fitted, and had a cast 

 made of them in 1848, for Baron von Gerolt, Prussian Minister, by Clark Mills. 

 In 1863, Professor Henry charged Dr. George A. Matile to make a new mould, 

 in order to obtain a perfect cast. While thus engaged. Dr. Matile recognized 

 the Smithsonian tablet as one of the three stone slabs which, placed together, 

 bore on their surface the sculpture of the famous Group of the Cross. * * 



* . The middle slab and that originally joining it on the left have been des- 

 cribed and figured by late explorers, but the one which completed the sculptured 

 group, and is now preserved in the Smithsonian building, probably was already 

 broken into fragments before 1832, when Waldeck explored the ruins of Palenque. 



Stephens, who was there eight years afterward, certainly noticed its scattered 

 pieces. It has not, therefore, been represented by either of them ; but Del Rio 

 and Dupaix, to whom we are indebted for the earliest reports on the ruins of Pa- 

 lenque still saw it in its proper place." I shall not follow all the incidents in the 

 history of the slab. Dr. Valentini, in 1873, on receipt of a photograph, redis- 

 covered the fact that the Smithsonian slab completed the Group of the Cross, 

 never having heard of Dr. Matile. Finally Dr. Rau conceived the idea and exe- 

 cuted it in 1879, of presenting the celebrated bas-relief in its original complete- 

 ness. 



Dr. Rau in his succeeding chapters discusses Explorations of Palenque, the 

 Temple of the Cross, the Group of the Cross, Aboriginal writings in Mexico, Yuca- 

 tan, and Central America, and closes with notes on the ruins of Yucatan and 

 Central America. Finally the work is published under the acknowledgement of 

 S. F. Haven and H. H. Bancroft. 



I would say, in conclusion, that I watched Mr. Trill, day after day, carefully 

 bring out his drawing, and so far from exhibiting any clumsiness, I think it was 

 the one thing needful to justify the ingenious conceptions of Dr. Matile and Dr. 

 ^Valentini. 



