TE2CUC0. 



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an ancient causeway, of the existence of which there 

 was of course not the most remote suspicion. The cedar 

 piles, by which the sides were supported, were still sound 

 at heart. Three feet below the edge of this ancient 

 work, in what may have been the very ditch, they struck 

 upon the entire skeleton of a mastodon, imbedded in 

 the blue clay. Many of the most valuable bones were 

 lost by the careless manner in which they were extri- 

 cated ; others were ground to powder on their convey- 

 ance to the capital, but sufficient remained to prove that 

 the animal had been of great size. My informant meas- 

 ured the diameter of the tusk, and found it to be eighteen 

 inches. 



The number of the remains of this huge animal found 

 on the table land of Mexico, and in the valley itself, is 

 astonishing. Indeed, wherever extensive excavations 

 have been made of late years, they have been amost al* 

 ways met with. 



In digging the foundations of the present great church 

 at Guadaloupe, many were brought to the surface, Mr. 

 W. of the Hacienda of San Nicholas, four leagues to the 

 south, in forming an excavation for an engine house, 

 found others* A friend of mine in the capital received, 

 while we were there, portions of a skeleton from Guada- 

 laxara; and I was informed, that in a neighbouring state, 

 there exists a barranca, which, from the quantity of these 

 colossal remains which are there found, the Indians have 

 named the Barranca de los Gigantes. 



Though I should be very glad to take shelter under 

 the convenient Quien sabe ? — the use of which I have 

 suggested to you — I could not avoid, at the time 1 was in 

 Mexico, putting many isolated facts together, and feeling 

 inclined to believe that this country had not only been in- 

 habited in extremely remote times, when the valley bore 

 a different aspect from that which it now exhibits, or 

 which tradition gives it, but that the extinct race of enor- 

 mous animals, whose remains would seem, in the instance 

 I have cited, to be coeval with the undated works of man, 

 may have been subjected to his will, and made instrumen- 



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