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placed in files, conveyed the bricks from hand to 

 hand the space of several leagues, from Cocotl to 

 Cholula. This tradition, which has the air of an 

 Arabian tale, is found among the Peruvians. 

 Those of Cuzco, who consider themselves as the 

 inhabitants of a holy city, assert, that, when the 

 Inca Tupac Yupanqui took possession of the 

 kingdom of Quito (Quitu), he ordered immense 

 masses of freestone to be taken from the quarries 

 near Cuzco, in order to erect temples to the Sun 

 in the newly conquered countries. 



I was enabled to ascertain the internal struc- 

 ture of the pyramid of Cholula in two different 

 places ; near the summit, on the front opposite 

 the volcano of Popocatepetl ; and on the northern 

 side, where the first terrace is cut through by 

 the new road, which leads from Puebla to 

 Mexico. In digging this road the end of the 

 temple was detached from the rest of the mass. 

 The eighth plate represents this detached part, 

 in which the alternate layers of brick and clay 

 are distinctly seen. The bricks were generally 

 eight centimetres high, and forty in length ; and 

 seemed to me not to have been burnt, but only 

 dried in the Sun; they may, however, have 

 undergone a slight baking, and the humidity of 

 the air may have rendered them friable. Per- 

 haps the strata of clay, which separate those of 

 brick, are wanting on the inside of the pyramid, 

 and in the parts which support the enormous 



