234 HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



things belonging to this and other arts. Some are of 

 opinion, that the Mexican mafons in building walls, filled 

 them up with earth on both fides, and that as the wall 

 was raifed, they raifed likewife the heaps of earth fo 

 high, that, until the building was completed, the walls 

 remained entirely buried and unfeen ; on which account 

 the mafons had no occafion for planks or fcaffolding. 

 But although this mode of building may appear to have 

 been in practice among the Miztecas, and other nations 

 of the Mexican empire, we do not believe that the Mexi- 

 cans ever adopted it, from the great expedition with 

 which they finiihed their buildings. Their columns were 

 cylindrical, or fquare ; but we cannot fay whether they 

 had either bafes or capitals. They endeavoured at no- 

 thing more anxioufly than to make them of one fingle 

 piece, adorning them frequently with figures in baflb 

 relievo. The foundations of the large houfes of the ca- 

 pital were laid upon a floor of large beams of cedar fixed 

 in the earth, on account of the want of folidity in the 

 foil, which example the Spaniards have imitated. The 

 roofs of fuch houfes were made of cedar, of fir, of cy- 

 prefs, of pine, or of ojametl ; the columns were of com- 

 mon ftone ; but in the royal palaces they were of marble, 

 and fome even of alabafter, which many Spaniards mif- 

 took for jafper. Before the reign of Ahuitzotl, the walls 

 of houfes were built of common Hone ; but as they difco- 

 vered in the time of that king the quarries of the ftone 

 Tetzontli, upon the banks of the Mexican lake, it was 

 afterwards preferred as the mod fit for the buildings of 

 the capital, it being hard, light, and porous like a fpunge : 

 on which account lime adheres very firmly to it. For 

 thefe properties and its colour, which is a blood red, it is 

 at prefent valued above any other (lone for buildings. 



The 



