No iron implements, or tools of any description, have been discovered here; nor was I successful in finding anything of the kind at Chi-Chen. Flint was undoubtedly used. This stone is capable of being formed with a most delicate natural edge, which is as durable, in the working of limestone, as that of steel. The soil about Uxmal is rich, principally of a red sand loam, capable of producing corn, tobacco, and almost any other product that the limited industry of its inhabitants may be disposed to cultivate. The face of the land is somewhat undulating, and free of that flat monotonous appearance which may be considered as almost an affliction to a great portion of this province. There are ponds in the vicinity; which, taken in connexion with the rank vegetation which borders them, engender considerable sickness during the months of autumn. The timber throughout Yucatan is of a stinted growth. Antonio de Solis, the author of the “History of the Conquest of Mexico,” a work of even classical merit, written at a period when he could have access to all the facts, gives some of the peculiar customs of the natives of Mexico that may be very properly noticed here; as they may throw some light upon the subject when the matter is brought to the reflection of those who are more competent than I am to draw conclusions. Some allowance should be made for the religious prejudices of the age in which this book was produced, and of its author. De Solis says that the Mexicans adjusted their calendar by the motion of the sun, making his altitude and declination the measure of times and seasons. They allowed to their years three hundred and sixty-five days, and divided them into eighteen months of twenty days each; leaving the five overplus days to come in at the end of the year, which were celebrated as holydays. Their weeks consisted of thirteen days, with different names marked in their calendar by images. The “age” or cycle, in their calendar, was four weeks of years, marked by a circle, which they divided into fifty-two degrees, allowing a year to each degree. In the centre of this circle they painted the sun, from whose rays proceeded four lines of different colors, which equally divided the circumference, leaving thirteen degrees to each semi-diameter; and these divisions served as signs of their zodiac, upon which their ages had their revolutions, and the sun his aspects, prosperous or adverse, according to the colors of the lines. In a large circle, enclosing the other, they marked, with their figures and characters, the accidents of the age, and all circumstances which had happened worthy of being remembered. These secular maps were public instruments, which served for a proof of their history. It may be remarked among the wisest institutions of their government, that they had official historiographers, whose duty it was to preserve for posterity the exploits of their nation.