A building generally regarded by the Mexicans as perhaps one of the most chaste and pleasing of their public edifices, although not one of the oldest, is that of the former Temple of San Augustin, of which a picture is here given. It was erected in 1692, and, after the time of the Reform, when ecclesiasticism was dispossessed, it became, by mandate of President Juarez, the Biblioteca Nacional, or Public Library of the city of Mexico. The lower portion is Ionic, the upper partakes of the Churrigueresque style, which predominated in New Spain from the sixteenth century, replacing the severer architecture prior to that period. Here, amid the two hundred thousand volumes of the library, are documents, little known and unprinted, containing valuable matter concerning the early history of America. In contrast with the moderately severe style of the above is the façade of the principal entrance of the Sagrario, or Basilica Metropolitana, intricately sculptured portals of majestic character, a network of carved pilasters and figures, a typical work of Churriguera, which compels the admiration of the visitor. It is built of the red _tezontle_ stone, compact and clear-hued, adding to its ornate beauty. The temple abuts upon the garden of the cathedral. This splendid structure is the finest from some points of view, of its nature, in the whole of America, north or south. Its two great towers, rising for two hundred feet from the pavement, are landmarks far and wide throughout the Valley of Mexico. It is four hundred feet long and two hundred wide, in the form of a Greek cross, with two naves and three aisles and twenty-two side chapels. The vaulted roof is supported by twenty Doric columns, and its great candelabra of gold, silver and copper, altars, rare paintings and other appointments, render it a notable example of church architecture. There are sixty massive churches in Mexico City, and as many more old convents and monasteries, or such was their original purpose before they were turned over to secular uses by the Reform. The domes--for many are domed--and towers of the ancient buildings stand out finely from the mass of the city, as beheld from the hills which surround the valley, bearing witness to the devout, the fanatic, the love of the beautiful which inspired Mexico under the viceroys. The cathedral was erected to face the great Zocalo or plaza on whose site stood the Teocalli or pyramid of the Aztec war god, a scene of bloody rites and barbarous sacrifice, stormed by Cortes and his Spaniards and razed to the ground.