erossed, and particularly how one of them was set up on the 
top of a mountain two thousand feet nigh, it was impossible to 
conjecture, In many places were blocks which had been quarried 
out and rejected for some defect; and at one gspot, midway in 
a ravine leading toward the river, was a gigantic block, much 
larger than any we saw in the city, which #as probably at its 
Way thither, to be carved and set up as an ornament, when the 
labours of the workmen were arrested, Like the unfinished 
blocks in the quarries at Assouan and on ‘he Partalioan 
Mountain, it remains as a memorial of baffled human plans.«> 
We remained all day on the top of the range. The close 
forest in which we had been labouring made us feel more sen 
sibly the beouty of tue extended view, On the top of the 
range Was a quarricd block, With the chay stong found 
among the ruins, and supposed to be the instrument of sculpture 
we wrote our names upon it. They stand alone, and few will evel 
pee them. Late in the afternoon we returned, and struck the = 
er about a mile above the ruins, near a stone wal} with a cir- 
cular buliding and a pit, apparently for a pabervotes * 
John L. Stephens, Incidents of travel in Central 
America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, 
pp.l46-47, Vol. 1, 1848. 
