remarkable, except its handsome cathedral and an aqueduct supported by lofty arches."

We will now give the author's account of some remarkable ruins of Indian buildings, which, notwithstanding its length, will, we doubt not, be very acceptable to our readers.

"Two leagues to the north of Villa Nueva, twelve leagues S.S. W. of Zacatecas, and scarcely a league from the farm La Quemada, there are very extensive ruins of ancient Indian buildings, which are there known by the name of los Edificios.' I paid several visits to these ruins, which, according to all appearance, date their origin from a period long, very long, before the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. As remains of this kind are extremely rare in the northern part of Mexico, they attracted all my attention. On one of my visits I was accompanied by Mr. de Berghes and Mr. Birkbeck, and we succeeded in a short time in taking a ground plan of the ruins, of which M. de Berghes made a drawing, and also a view of the ruins. I sent a sketch of this plan, with a description of the buildings, in the year 1830, to the late Professor Niebuhr, who felt so much interested in the subject, that he intended to publish these drawings with some observations of his own. Unfortunately, this excellent man was carried off by a premature death, and his remarks have not been printed. The 'Edificios' are on the side of a steep hill; the neighbouring plain would have been a much more convenient situation for so extensive a settlement, but the founders seem to have had in view rather the defence of their establishment than the convenience of its situation. Some of the principal buildings are on the S.E. foot, but most of them are on the eastern terrace-like declivity. Its bold rocky summit is now adorned with a cross, and rises pretty high above the ruins, which extend to the northern rather depressed top of the mountain.

The

"On my first visit to Edificios, I was struck with the building on the south side of the mountain, which, as I afterwards found, is the largest of all. It is built on a terrace-like elevation projecting on the southwest, and stands at present quite isolated, but seems to have been formerly connected with some other buildings towards the west. length of this building is from east to west, and it consists of only two divisions. That on the east is surrounded by a wall in a good state of preservation, eight feet thick, and eighteen feet high, which is interrupted only by a single opening on the west side; this is the entrance which joins the eastern with the western division. This eastern division is 138 feet long and 100 wide. There are in it eleven pillars in very good preservation, which stand at the distance of twenty-three feet from the long side, and nineteen and a half feet from the short side of the apartment; they are placed at equal intervals, so that three are on each of the short sides, four on the western or entrance side, and four on the opposite side. The pillars are perfectly round, eighteen feet high, and seventeen feet in circumference; they have neither base nor capital, and appear to have formerly supported a roof, which ran round the inner wall, leaving the middle space free. There is, how

ever, no trace of any such roof to be seen, the pillars stand quite detached, and in the whole interior grows high grass, which our horses enjoyed while we were examining the buildings. The western apartment is much larger; it is 231 feet long, and 194 feet wide; its length being from east to west, and its breadth from north to south, contrary to the other apartment. This western division seems to have been likewise surrounded by a wall eight feet thick and eighteen high, which has not resisted the ravages of time so well as the first, but has fallen down in many places; and it may, perhaps, have been pulled down to make fences for the neighbouring fields. This apartment is deepened in the middle, so that all round there is a kind of terrace nineteen or twenty feet broad, and in the middle a basin four or five feet deep, surrounded with a stone wall, and, in the centre of each of the four sides, a broad flight of steps descending into the basin. All round the terrace, and near the edge of the basin, there is a channel, or drain, scarcely a foot wide and deep, which is likewise lined with stone and covered with slabs; it was probably intended to carry off the rain water that came down from the mountain to the building, to keep it from the wall, and convey it to the other side of the building next to the plain. Some might, perhaps, be inclined to believe that it was intended to fill the basin with water, and not to carry it off. I do not think this probable, because the basin is not walled in so as to be calculated to hold water, and because most of the buildings, which have similar basins, are situated at such an elevation that it was not very possible to conduct water to them. On the east side of this basin, on the edge of the terrace, there is one more pillar of the same size and height as the others; though there is no trace of any more such pillars on the terrace, I am not indisposed to believe that several stood on this, perhaps on all four sides of the basin, and served to support a roof which ran round the basin. Many stones have been removed from los Edificios to make fences for the fields, and, perhaps, those of the vanished pillars have been used for that purpose.

"In the middle of the basin there was a small pyramid, (which is now only a heap of rubbish,) like those which we shall presently have to describe in other buildings; and of which there is one in good preservation to the west of this great building. The whole, the walls as well as the pillars and pyramids, is composed of not very large, unhewn stones. The trachyte-porphyry, which separates into thin plates, furnished admirable materials for such a building; the stones seem, however, not to have been obtained from the Cerro de los Edificios, but from the opposite valley. A mixture of black earth, dry grass, and roots, served as cement, and to fill up the vacancies between the uneven stones. On the outer side of the buildings, the cement has been washed away by the rains, and at first sight you think the walls are built without cement; they excite admiration for the patience and care with which such innumerable small stones have been fitted together; the pillars are particularly well-built, of which their perfect preservation for so long a period, notwithstanding the rude materials of which they are composed, affords the best proof.

"From this building you ascend towards the north-west, partly by

natural, partly by artificial, terrace-like elevations, composed of innumerable slabs of porphyry, to a second similar building. It lies considerably higher above the plain, on a terrace projecting towards the south. This building likewise consists of two apartments, one of which has a basin, like that in the first building; in the other there is no sign of a pillar, though, from its size, it would be more difficult to roof over than the first building. Its position is at right angles to the first building, its length being from north to south; the length of the basin is from west to east, parallel to that of the first building. The length of the other apartment is from north to south.

"In this basin there are two truncated pyramids, which are much dilapidated; the smaller, in the middle of the basin, appears to have been scarcely six feet square at the base, and the same in height; precisely to the north is the second pyramid, on the terrace. It is about thirty feet square at the base, and the same in height. The nucleus seems to have consisted of a parallelepipedon of small flat stones, round which walls in the form of stairs were built, and the steps were then filled up so as to give the pyramid a smooth face. On the side of this edifice are the ruins of other smaller buildings, forming a labyrinth of small irregular chambers, all in the same rude style as the first building. No trace of a roof is anywhere to be found.

"To the east of the second great building, and rather lower, there are large terraces of masonry composed of porphyry split into slabs; only two ways lead down from these terraces, ending in roads which extend beyond Edificios. One of these roads disappears before it reaches the stream; the other crosses the stream and appears again on the other side; it leads to the eminence which bounds the valley on this side, where a great heap of stones indicates that a pyramid formerly stood, and ends on the Cerro Cuisillo. These roads are straight as a line, thirteen or fourteen feet wide, and paved. A third road seems to have led to the farm of la Quemada, but it is not now so visible as the middle one. Nearly to the west of the principal building there is a circular spot from which several such roads issue. [In M. Burkart's plan there are ten, resembling the radii of a circle.] Some of them may still be traced far into the plain. The most considerable of them runs almost a league to the south-west, and in the opposite direction as far as the mountains; another runs west and east towards the principal building. These roads are raised a little above the plain, and are paved with rough stones; so that it seems as if the plain, which is now quite dry, was formerly swampy, or, perhaps, covered with water; for we can scarcely imagine that the barefooted Indians would have chosen such a hard material for their ordinary paths. Or, are those paved roads the streets of a large town, along which the dwellings of the people stood? Of these latter no ruins can be seen, but then we cannot well believe that the huts of the poorer class were built of stone, and able so long to defy the ravages of time. At the place where the first-mentioned road runs from the terrace near the building to the east side of the valley, there is the largest pyramid that I saw at Edificios. It is fifty-four feet square at the base, and the same in height; it is truncated, like all the others, and built of small stones.

"To the north of the second building is a smaller, of the same kind as the others, also containing two pyramids, and two main roads run from it, round the mountain; they are from twenty to twenty-five feet broad, and bounded by steep precipices. On the west side of this mountain lie several smaller edifices, which on that side are quite inaccessible from below, there being only one approach to them left, with partly natural, partly artificial terraces, on which they are erected. The top of the mountain above this terrace is extremely rocky, bare, and without any more buildings. Towards the north-west, this terrace is connected only by a narrow ridge with the two northern tops. Steep rocks bound the little plateau of the most easterly of those two mountains, and where an access was possible it was blocked up by high walls. At the south-east end of this ridge, where it joins the principal mountain, los Edificios, there is a basin formed by a thick wall, to the bottom of which, as in all the other buildings, there is a descent by four flights of steps, and in the middle of it a small pyramid. Towards the northwest, the passage from this building to the ridge of rocks is guarded by a strong wall, a narrow opening in which allows only a few persons to pass at a time. At the north-west end of this ridge the access is still better defended by two far projecting terraces, which advance so far on each side that a few men would be able to defend the only two approaches from below to this point."

The remainder of the description (about half a page) of this fortified position, which is every where defended by strong walls, cannot well be understood without the plan, to which there are many references.

"All these walls are of the same material, and executed in the same manner as the building first mentioned.

"I did not find here either the usual weapons and utensils of the Indians, made of obsidian and burnt clay, which are so frequent in the vicinity of Mexico, nor any wrought stone which might have afforded some further indication relative to the mechanical skill of the founders of Edificios. The only thing that I saw, which authorises us to conjecture that the inhabitants of Edificios possessed tools, with the aid of which they were able to fashion stone, is a large slab, twelve or thirteen feet in diameter and three feet thick, on which the outlines of a foot and a hand are carved. This stone lies on the east side of the mountain, near to the road which leads to the Rancho Tuitan.

I do not think it at all probable that the ruins I have just described should alone have formed a town, and been the habitations of poor Indians. It is evident from the construction of the buildings, and materials employed, that the arts must have been in a very low state, and then we shall scarcely be able to imagine, that a still rude people would have felt the necessity of erecting such large edifices for its domestic

use.

And why, too, should the poor Indian, who must have had to cultivate the ground for his subsistence, have fixed his abode on these bare mountains, when the neighbouring plains offered him far more eligible situations? These considerations induce me to believe that the

buildings situated on the mountains were either destined for the use of the chief and the priests, and used at the same time as public temples, or that they were devoted to religious purposes only. Clavigero thinks that these are the ruins of Chicomoztoc, where the Mexicans, after parting from six other tribes who were emigrating with them, remained for nine years, before they proceeded any further towards the south. It does not, however, appear to me to be likely, that a wandering tribe should have erected such extensive edifices, have accumulated such masses of stone, and made such great roads. I could not find in the country itself a single credible tradition respecting the founders of these edifices, or their subsequent occupants, but there is no want of fables of treasures said to be hidden under the ruins."

We have given entire this long account of these remarkable buildings, which, as far as we know, will be, if not wholly, yet in a great measure, new to our readers. We have refrained from entering into any speculations respecting the founders, or the original destination of them, as we are not in possession of a sufficient number of facts even to build a probable conjecture upon, and we should in the end have only indulged our fancy, without throwing any light on a subject at present so obscure. We shall now make some further miscellaneous extracts, begging the reader, however, to bear in mind that, if we take little notice of the geological details, which are the main subject and the most important part of the work, it is because we find it difficult to extract an interesting portion, the principal description being illustrated by numerous elaborate geological sections, some of them coloured, in eight plates. These details, independently of their general interest to geologists, must be peculiarly valuable to the companies and individuals who have embarked their property in mining speculations in that country. M. Burkart gives a circumstantial account of the following mining districts:-1st. Geological description of the mining district of Tlalpujahua. We have mentioned above the failure of the English company in working the mines there. 2d. Description of the mining districts of Chico, Real del Monte, and Pechuga. 3d. The mining district of Guanaxuato. 4th. The mining district of Zacatecas. 5th. Mines of Tresnillo. 6th. Districts of Ramos Charcas, Catorze, and Mazapil. In general it appears that the civil wars having caused the suspension of the works, the destruction of the machinery, &c., many of the mines were filled with water, and the difficulty of resuming the operations was very great. The English companies, not anticipating the enormous outlay that would be required before they could hope for any return, contracted very improvident and ruinous bargains with the owners, to whom, after expending their funds, they were obliged to give up the possession of the mines, when, perhaps, if they had been