[235] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 110-114.--Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 40.--Ten thousand men were employed in the transportation of this enormous mass, according to Tezozomoc, whose narrative, with all the accompanying prodigies, is minutely transcribed by Bustamante. The Licentiate shows an appetite for the marvellous which might excite the envy of a monk of the Middle Ages. (See Descripcion, nota, loc. cit.) The English traveller Latrobe accommodates the wonders of nature and art very well to each other, by suggesting that these great masses of stone were transported by means of the mastodon, whose remains are occasionally disinterred in the Mexican Valley. Rambler in Mexico, p. 145. [236] [In 1875 Dr. Augustus Le Plongeon, having successfully interpreted certain hieroglyphic inscriptions at Chichen Itza, unearthed, at a distance of four hundred yards from the palace at that place, a statue of Chaac Mol, or Balam (the tiger king), the greatest of the Itza rulers. It was seized by the Mexican officials and sent to the city of Mexico. There, in the courtyard of the National Museum, it may be seen to-day, just opposite its exact duplicate, which was found buried, either in the plaza of Mexico or somewhere in Tlaxcala, some years ago. The story of the discovery seems marvellous in the extreme, but photographs taken at many stages of the exhumation dispel doubt as to its truth. For a very full report upon the whole matter, see the paper by Stephen Salisbury, president of the American Antiquarian Society, in the Proceedings of that society for 1877-78, pp. 70-119.--M.] [237] A great collection of ancient pottery, with various other specimens of Aztec art, the gift of Messrs. Poinsett and Keating, is deposited in the Cabinet of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia. See the Catalogue, ap. Transactions, vol. iii. p. 510. Another admirable collection may be seen in the Museum of Natural History in New York.--M. [238] Hernandez, Hist. Plantarum, lib. 6, cap. 116. [239] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 15.--Boturini, Idea, p. 77.--It is doubtful how far they were acquainted with the manufacture of silk. Carli supposes that what Cortés calls silk was only the fine texture of hair, or down, mentioned in the text. (Lettres Américaines, tom. i. let. 21.) But it is certain they had a species of caterpillar, unlike our silkworm, indeed, which spun a thread that was sold in the markets of ancient Mexico. See the Essai politique (tom. iii. pp. 66-69), where M. de Humboldt has collected some interesting facts in regard to the culture of silk by the Aztecs. Still, that the fabric should be a matter of uncertainty at all shows that it could not have reached any great excellence or extent.