MEXICAN HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY. 21 



on the theory of progressive architectural forms, the drawings of Catherwood show 

 that these tribes or nations of the aborigines had advanced to a very important 

 stage, though their style of " ornamentation" indicates that they had not entirely 

 abandoned the barbaric for the beautiful. 



Returning again, northward, from the extreme southern limits of Mexico, we 

 find, in the State of Puebla — which lies directly west of the northern part of the 

 State of Vera Cruz — at about 19° of north latitude, the well known remains of the 

 Pyramid of Cholula. It was originally constructed of adobes, or sun-dried bricks, 

 and may therefore be considered a sort of earthwork. The huge pyramidal mass 

 rises abruptly from the plain of Puebla to a height of 204 feet, 1 and was composed 

 of four stages or stories connected by terraces ; but the materials of the mound 

 have been so worn by the attrition of time and seasons, that at present it resembles 

 one of those Indian heaps of our own West, with which the reader has been made 

 acquainted in the volumes of Squier and Davis. The most striking and valuable 

 facts in regard to it — as its shape was simply pyramidal — are to be found in the 

 labor and materials which were expended on a work whose base line measures 

 1,060 feet, and whose present elevation reaches 204. 



Adjoining the State of Puebla, immediately west of it, and, of course, in the 

 neighborhood of the same latitude, we enter the State of Mexico, the seat and 

 centre of the Aztec population which submitted to Cortez. The Spanish settlement 

 which occupied the site of the ancient capital, very soon obliterated every archi- 

 tectural vestige of the aborigines, so that I am not aware, either from my own 

 personal examinations, or from the reports of travellers, that any remains of temples, 

 palaces, pyramids, or other edifices, are preserved in or very near the city of 

 Mexico. The National Museum, and a few private collections, are full of small 

 relics of various characters, which have been found on the surface or disinterred 

 in the neighborhood. These relics are either of stone, carved with skill or roughly ; 

 or of clay burnt to the requisite hardness for utensils. To the images or objects, 

 connected, as is supposed, with the religion and science of the Aztecs, various and 

 perhaps arbitrary names have often been affixed by antiquarians, but their descrip- 

 tion belongs to another branch of archsoology than that which now engages our 

 attention. 2 



But, if the city of Mexico and its immediate neighborhood are destitute of ancient 

 architecture, the present limits of the State are not without some valuable remains 

 of that character. Across the Lake of Tezcoco, at a distance of about twelve miles 

 from the capital, and in the northwestern part of the modern town of Tezcoco, the 



1 According to the accurate scientific measurements of Lieut. Semmes, of the TJ. S. Navy, and Lieut. 

 Beauregard, of the IT. S. Engineers, thus differing from Humboldt, whose work states the elevation to 

 be 162 feet. See Mexico, Aztec, Spanish, and Republican, II, 230. 



2 The reader will find a full account of these lesser remains in my first and second volumes of " Mexico, 

 Aztec, Spanish, and Republican ;" and, of two or three of the most important, in Gama's " Descripcion 

 de las dos Piedras, &c." The size and sculpture of some of the larger stones are quite wonderful ; the 

 image called " Teoyaomiqui," is cut from a single block of basalt, nine feet high and five and a half 

 broad ; the " Sacrificial stone," also of basalt, is cylindrical, nine feet in diameter and three high ; 

 while the " Calendar stone," of the same material, is eleven feet eight inchel in diameter, and about two 

 feet in thickness. 



