APPENDIX, 
sro 
less. These monuments, according to the accounts of the first 
travellers, and from the form which they yet exhibit, were the 
models of the Aztec teocallis. The nations whom the Spa¬ 
niards found settled in New Spain attributed the pyramids of 
Teotihuacan to the Toultec nation ■;* consequently their con¬ 
struction goes as far back as the eighth or ninth century ; for the 
kingdom of Tolula lasted from 667 to 1031. The faces of these 
edifices are to within 52' exactly placed from north to south, and 
from east to west. Their interior is clay, mixed with small 
stones. This kernel is covered with a thick wall of porous 
amygdaloid. We perceive, besides, traces of a bed of lime which 
covers the stones v the tetzontli) on the outside. Several authors 
of the sixteenth century pretend, according to an Indian tradi¬ 
tion, that the interior of these pyramids is hollow. Boturini 
says that Siguenza, the Mexican geometrician, in vain endeavor¬ 
ed to pierce these edifices by a gallery. They formed four lay¬ 
ers of which three are only now perceivable, the injuries of time, 
and the vegetation of the cactus and agaves having exercised 
their destructive influence on the exterior of these monuments. 
A stair of large hewn stones formerly led to their tops, where,, 
according to the accounts of the first travellers, were statues 
covered with very thin lamina of gold. Each of the four prin¬ 
cipal layers was subdivided into small gradations of a metref in 
height, of which the edges are still distinguishable, which were 
covered with fragments of obsidian, that were undoubtedly the 
edge of instruments with which the Toultec and Aztec priests 
in their barbarous sacrifices (Pafiahua Tlemacazque or Teo - 
* Siguenza, however, in his manuscript Cotes, believes them to be 
the work of the Olmec nation, which dwelt round the Sierra cle Tlasca- 
la, called Matlacueje. If this hypothesis, pf which we are unacquainted 
with the historical foundations, be true, ihese monuments would be still 
more ancient. For the Oimecs belong to the first nations mentioned in 
the Aztec chronology as existing in New Spain. It is even pretended 
that the Oimecs are the only nation of which the migration took .place* 
not from the north and north-west (Mongol Asia ?) but from the east 
(Europe ?). 
f 3 feet 3 inches. Trans. 
