RUINED TEMPLE, MUGERES ISLAND, 
Se ANCIENT: MONUMENTS OF YUCATAN, | 
’ T is said that an English tourist in America offered + 
, the following as an excuse for his calling on the © 
poet Longfellow without an introduction: “ Your 
country, sir, is so awfully big and new one can’t see 
itin an age. ‘Then, sir, there are no castles, no 
ruins to tellof old times, so I thought I’d drop in 
: ‘and see you as one of the curiosities.” There are 
Of, Americans who do not consider themselves as old 
who can recall a time when they regarded their own 
country much as the Englishman is said to have 
done. Not so many years ago portions of New Mexico, Arizona and 
Southern Utah and Nevada were marked in our school geographies as 
** Unexplored Territory.” This territory was supposed to be a wilder- 
ness inhabited by grizzly bears and barbarous Indians, and such was 
the case. Yet scientific explorers like Professor Holmes have recently 
' demonstrated that the land marked “ unexplored” is rich in the re- 
mains of forgotten races, and that the newest land in America rivals 
in human interest those parts of the Old World which are popularly 
supposed to be hoary with antiquity. 
Because of the historic threads—sacred and profane—that link 
us tothe past, we in America are apt to ignore the archeological won- 
ders at our own door in contemplation of the ruins in the valley of the 
Nile and along the Tigris and Euphrates. Although known of since 
the days of the Spanish invasion, it is only of late years that the atten- 
tion of Americans of average intelligence has been directed to the 
mighty chain of ruins that extends from the valley of the Gila, in 
Arizona, to the Isthmus of Panama. We are just awakening to the 
fact that America has ruins that rival in interest those of the Old 
Nore.—A review of Archeological Studies Among the Ancient Cities of Mexico. PartI.: Monu- | 
ments of Yucatan, by Wittt1am H, Houmes, The illustrations are from Prof, Holmes’ original 
drawings and photographs. 
