natives of Yucatan and the tribes around the Gulf of Mexico from early times makes its introduction a very easily explained fact. Next, let us make a brief examination of the architectural ornamentation of the ancient buildings of the Buddhist East and those of Central America, and see if there exist any similarities which are of a nature to help the proof of the connection. Much has been made of that peculiar feature of Mayan decorative art, the "snouted mask" or "elephant trunk," common on the buildings of Palenque, Chichen and Uxmal, and many other cities. This is shown in many of our illustrations. It is a trunk-like projection which is used as an ornamentation on the cornices. In this some have eagerly found a reminiscence of India's elephant. There would not seem to be the least reason for these zoological speculations. An examination of the ornament reveals a rudely carved face on the wall behind; and if we turn to the _Codex Cortesianus_ we find recurring therein the figure of a deity with a peculiarly elongated nose, an exact miniature of this much discussed architectural ornamentation. Thus there can be little doubt that the "snouted mask" was the symbol of a deity, possibly the Tapir-god, who is always represented with a snout which is a parody of that of the real animal. But if there is nothing in the elephant theory of the so-called "snouted mask," there is a very curious type of ornamentation in some of the Mayan buildings which may prove of great import in this connection. At Labna, at Copan and elsewhere, are found, as the finish of cornices, alligators' heads--the one we saw at Labna having a half-curled "elephant trunk,"--with jaws agape, from within them a grotesque face peering out. This is so peculiar a design that it must be admitted that a parallel to it in any land would be at least suggestive. We have found an exact parallel where we should most have hoped to find it. Heads of the alligator's congener, the crocodile, exist in large numbers at Boro Budor and in the ruined Buddhist cities of Ceylon. In his _Cambodge et Java_ (1896) M. Albert Tissandier gives illustrations of the gargoyles decorating the terraces of Boro Budor, showing them to be the fantastic heads of crocodiles, surmounted by a half-curled elephant trunk. He writes (we translate): "This type of crocodile, ornamented with the trunk of an elephant, appears to be of Singhalese origin. I have remarked numerous examples at Anuradhapura in Ceylon, the building of which is much more ancient than Boro Budor, and also at Polonnaruwa.... The arcades (at Boro Budor) end at the base in a head of a crocodile like the gargoyles I have described above. From out the open jaws of these monsters peers in each case a little demon with grinning face." It is difficult indeed to believe that so singular a design and detail of decoration should have been evolved at once in ancient Buddhist India and among the American Indians of Yucatan and Guatemala.