I879-J 
Peruvian Antiquities . 
IOI 
central parts entirely hidden, or on the internal or external 
surfaces. These stones, selected with no reference to uni- 
formity in shape or size, vary from one-half cubic foot to 
1500 cubic feet solid contents, and if, in the many , many 
millions of stones you could find one that would fit in the 
place of another, it would be purely accidental. In “Triumph 
street,” in the city of Cuzco, in a part of the wall of the 
ancient house of the virgins of the sun, is a very large stone, 
known as “ the stone of the twelve corners,” since it joined 
with those that surround it, by twelve faces, each having a 
different angle. Besides these twelve faces it has its internal 
one, and no one knows how many it has on its back that is 
hidden in the masonry. In the wall in the centre of the 
Cuzco fortress there are stones 13 feet high, 15 feet long, 
and 8 feet thick, and all have been quarried miles away. 
Near this city there is an oblong smooth boulder 18 feet in 
its longer axis, and 12 in its lesser. On one side are large 
niches cut out, in which a man can stand, and by swaying 
his body cause the stone to rock. These niches apparently 
were made solely for this purpose. One of the most won- 
derful and extensive of these works in stone is that called 
Ollantay-Tambo, a ruin situated thirty miles north of Cuzco, 
in a narrow ravine on the bank of the river Urubamba. 
It consists of a fortress constructed on the top of a sloping, 
craggy eminence. Extending from it to the plain below is 
a stone stairway. At the top of the stairway are six large 
slabs, 12 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 3 feet thick, side by 
side, having between them and on top narrow strips of 
stone about 6 inches side, frames as it were to the slabs, 
and all being of dressed stone. At the bottom of the hill, 
part of which was made by hand, and at the foot of the 
stairs, a stone wall 10 feet wide and 12 feet high extends 
some distance into the plain. In it are many niches, all 
facing the south. 
The ruins on the islands in Lake Titicaca, where Incal 
history begins, have often been described. 
At Tiahuanaco, a few miles south of the lake, there are 
stones in the form of columns, partly dressed, placed in line 
at certain distances from each other, and having an elevation 
above the ground of from 18 to 20 feet. In this same lin« 
there is a monolithic doorway, now broken, 10 feet high 
by 13 wide. The space cut out for the door is 7 feet 4 inches 
high by 3 feet 2 inches wide. The whole face of the stone 
above the door is engraved. Another, similar, but smaller, 
lies on the ground beside it. These stones are of hard 
porphyry, and differ geologically from the surrounding 
