The list of articles given by Mr. Prescott, as the tributes paid to the royal revenue, will furnish an epitome of many manufactures and products. “There were cotton dresses and mantles of featherwork exquisitely made; ornamented armor; vases and plates of gold; gold dust, bands, and bracelets; crystal, gilt, and varnished jars and goblets; bells, arms, and utensils of copper; reams of paper; grain, fruits, copal, amber, cochineal, cocoa, wild animals and birds, timber, lime, and mats.”[17] The regularity of plan in the chief cities, which so forcibly struck the eye of the Spaniard; the solid structures of stone, often reared amid the waters of their lakes on a foundation of piles; the vast temples before described; aqueducts only second, perhaps, to those of Rome or Peru; vast solid dykes, and roads of masonry which vied in stability with those of ancient Rome, everywhere attested a high state of constructive skill; while baths, gardens, canals covered with light craft, and sculptures in an infinite variety of form, generally grotesque, may be added to the details already given of the results of Mexican civilization. There is nothing in the old world, says Mr. Stephens, like the ruins of the cities of Central America, which he so completely explored. The pyramidal structures are not complete in themselves like those of Egypt. They form parts of a whole, have no cells in their interior, and were mostly employed as the foundations for other buildings; nor are the single stones, used for images and ornaments, to be compared in vastness of proportion to Egyptian obelisks. The conclusion arrived at by the writer above quoted is, that in these cities we are presented with “the spectacle of a people skilled in architecture, sculpture, and drawing, and, beyond doubt, other more perishable arts, and possessing the cultivation and refinement attendant upon these, not derived from the old world, but originating and growing up here, without models or masters, having a distinct, separate, independent existence; like the plants and fruits of the soil, indigenous.”[18] These edifices were constructed probably by the people who occupied the country at the time of the Spanish invasion, not by earlier races; and a short account of some of the more remarkable remains will be here added, to complete the picture of civilization in the new world already presented to the reader. The remains never reveal the existence of the true arch, and herein are similar to most primitive architectural structures. The substitute in use was, to make the stones gradually overlap each other, until they approached close together in the centre of the doorway or passage to be roofed, when one more stone was added to complete the pointed arch thus formed.