Another monument of the ancient civilization is Xochicalco, seventy-five miles southwest of the city of Mexico. In the middle of a plain rises a cone-shaped height from three to four hundred feet high, whose base has an oval form two miles in circumference. Two tunnels piercing the side of the mound open towards the north; the first has been explored only eighty-two feet. The second penetrates the calcareous hill by a large gallery nine feet and a half high, with several branches in different directions. The ground is paved. The walls are supported by mason-work cemented and covered with red ochre. The principal gallery leads to a hall eighty feet long, whose ceiling is kept in place by the aid of two pilasters. In one corner of this hall is a little recess, excavated like the rest out of the solid rock, with an ogival dome of Gothic aspect. So much for the interior. Outside are five successive terraces of mason-work sustained by walls surmounted by parapets. At the summit stand upon a broad platform the ruins of the temple for which the mound was apparently destined; it is a rectangular building constructed of blocks of porphyritic granite placed on each other without the aid of mortar, with such skill that the joinings were scarcely visible. In 1755 the temple still preserved five stories; at the top was a stone, which might have served as a seat, covered like the rest of the building with strange ornaments carved in the stone. Works evidently for defence testify to the constant fighting which must have been waged over Anahuac. In the province of Vera Cruz, at Huatusco, there are traces of fortifications stretching towards the north. Ceutla seems to have been one of the chief points chosen for defence. The plain is covered with ruins. A forest conceals and at the same time protects several pyramids of stone bound with mortar. These pyramids are the most striking feature of this ancient architecture. The teocallis or palaces at Palenque and Copan, ruins found in Yucatan and Honduras, are erected on truncated pyramids like those of Anahuac. They are all of one primitive type, although differing in details of material and form. These ruins, still left to attest the power of the great vanished nations who erected them, are rapidly disappearing. The Spanish conquerors were amazed at their size and importance--so much so that in their description they often exaggerated their splendor. Some of them Cortés destroyed; whatever he spared, gradually falls away, through neglect, theft, or other ravage of time. Forests of tropical growth have hidden the wonders of Palenque from destruction. Other such places may yet exist all undiscovered; and it is probable that the researches of scientific explorers will in time bring to light much information about the builders of these monuments. Meanwhile we must again turn to conjecture, and in the absence of facts to keep it within bound, we may indulge our imagination, and play with legend.