usages of a northern people^ who, from the in- 
clemency of the climate, were obliged to warm 
their huts ; and the idea of Vesta (’EjTia), which, 
in the most ancient system of the Greek mytho- 
logy, represents at once the house, the hearth, 
and the domestic fire. The sign tecpatl, flint, 
was dedicated to the god of the air. Quetzal- 
cohuatl, a mysterious personage, who belongs to 
the heroic times of Mexican history, and of 
whom we have had occasion to speak several 
times in the course of this work. According to 
the Mexican calendar, tecpatl is the sign of the 
night, which, at the beginning of the cycle, ac- 
companies the hieroglyphic of the day, called 
ehecatl, or wind. Perhaps the history of an aero- 
lite, which fell from the sky on the summit of the 
pyramid of Cholula, dedicated to Quetzalcohuatl, 
led the Mexicans to establish this singular con- 
nexion between a flint (tecpatl) and the god of 
the winds. 
We have observed, that the Mexican astrolo- 
gers have given to the traditions of the destruc- 
tions and regenerations of the world an historic 
character, in denoting the days and years of the 
great catastrophes according to the calendar of 
which they made use in the 16th century. A 
very simple calculation might lead them to find 
the hieroglyphic of the year, which preceded a 
given period 5206, or 4804 years. It is thus that 
the Chaldean and Egyptian astrologers, according 
