the effect on stone of the kind of tool we are hunting for. Until we find 

 ■ the implement, however, we may believe on early Spanish authority, that 

 hard copper was used, or imagine adzes and chisels of stone as we please, 

 while we recognize with Professor Holmes the importance of ransacking 

 the sites of quarries, where the innumerable blocks (20,000 carved on 

 the facade of the "Governors House", at Uxmal alone) were pro- 

 cured. 2 Happily chosen general observations give a clearness to the 

 whole presentation, and the delightful yet confused and complex 

 impression of the ruins left upon the mind by the accounts of 

 travelers becomes simple in the colder light of Professor Holmes 

 systematic observations. The reader continually thanks him as he 

 would thank the compiler of an index to a work of many volumes. 

 Such characteristic general features as the ignorance of a master 

 principle of mason craft like joint binding, the feeble grasp of the 



