The chief peculiarity of these ruins, that which especially invites attention, is the evidence they furnish that their builders had remarkable skill in architecture and architectural ornamentation. All who have visited them bear witness that the workmanship was of a high order. The rooms and corridors in these edifices were finely and often elaborately finished, plaster, stucco, and sculpture being used. In one room of a great building at · Uxmal Mr. Stephens says "the walls were coated with a very fine plaster of Paris, equal to the best seen on walls in this country." Speaking of the construction of this edifice, he says, "throughout, the laying and polishing of the stones are as perfect as under the rules of the best modern masonry." All the ruins explored have masonry of the same character. The floors, especially of the courts and corridors, were made sometimes of flat stones admirably wrought and finely polished, and sometimes of cement, which is now" as hard as stone." Mr. Stephens, describing corridors of the "Palace" at Palenque, says "the floors are of cement, as hard as the best seen in the remains of Roman baths and cisterns." We give two illustrations of their method of constructing the arch. Figure 25 shows an arch of Las Monjas, at Uxmal. Figure 26 shows the most common form of the arch in the older ruins.

The ornamentation is no less remarkable than the masonry and architectural finish. It is found on the walls within and without, and appears in elaborate designs on the heavy cornices. The exterior ornamentation is generally carved or sculptured on the smooth sur

Fig. 26.-Common Form of Arch.

face of the stone, and must have required a vast amount of time and labor, as well as skillful artists. In some of the ruins inscriptions are abundant, being found on walls, tablets, and pillars. The general effect of the exterior decoration is thus described by Mr. Stephens in the account of his first view of the ruins at Palenque: "We saw before us a large building richly ornamented with stuccoed figures on pilasters, curious and elegant; trees growing close to it, and their branches entering the doors; the style and effect of structure and ornament unique, extraordinary, and mournfully beautiful." In a description of the walls around an interior court of a building at Uxmal, we have this tribute to the artistic

skill of the decorators: "It would be difficult, in arranging four sides facing a court-yard, to have more variety, and, at the same time, more harmony of ornament.”

In some of the ruins, and especially at Copan, there are clusters of four-sided stone pillars or obelisks varying from twelve to over twenty feet high. These are elaborately sculptured, and show human figures, ornamental designs, and many inscriptions. One or two statues have been discovered, and a statuette twelve inches high is described; "it is made of baked clay, very hard, and the surface is smooth as if coated with enamel." At Palenque are remains of a well-built aqueduct; and near the ruins, especially in Yucatan, are frequently found the remains of many finely constructed aguadas or artificial lakes. The bottoms of these lakes were made of flat stones laid in cement, several layers deep. In Yucatan traces of a very ancient paved road have been found. This road ran north and south, and probably led to cities in the region now covered by the great wilderness. It was raised above the graded level of the ground, and made very smooth.

These antiquities show that this section of the continent was anciently occupied by a people admirably skilled in the arts of masonry, building, and architectural decoration. Some of their works can not be excelled by the best of our constructors and decorators. They were highly skilled, also, in the appliances of civilized life, and they had the art of writing, a fact placed beyond dispute by their many inscriptions.

A more particular account of some of these ruins will