It is not surprising that the Valley of Mexico became the centre of a cult of which the appeal for rain was the salient characteristic. A copious supply of rainfall for the purposes of irrigation is, indeed, a necessity to the Mexican agriculturist, and a dry year in ancient Anahuac brought with it famine and misery unspeakable. Inexpressibly touching are the fervent prayers to Tlaloc, god of water, that he should not visit his displeasure upon the people by withdrawing the pluvial supply. “O our most compassionate lord ... I beseech thee to look with eyes of pity upon the people of this city and kingdom, for the whole world, down to the very beasts, is in peril of destruction and disappearance and irremediable end ... for the ridges of the earth suffer sore need and anguish from lack of water ... with deep sighing and anguish of heart I cry upon all those that are gods of water, that are in the four quarters of the world ... to come and console this poor people and to water the earth, for the eyes of all that inhabit the earth, animals as well as men, are turned towards you, and their hope is set upon you.” [12] DEIFICATION OF THE ELEMENTS OF GROWTH The elements of growth, in the mind of primitive man, are four in number, the earth, grain, rain, and solar heat, and it is not remarkable that all of these came to be regarded as deified powers, and were latterly personalized in anthropomorphic form. It does not appear that the sun was at first looked upon as an agency of growth. There is, indeed, proof that in early times he was not regarded as of any importance from a calendric point of view, and that the time and festival-counts were designed upon a lunar basis. [13] It is not unlikely that, in a region where his torrid heat, if unaccompanied by rainfall, resulted in famine, he was at first regarded, if not unfavourably, at least with no special predilection. If this conclusion is correct, and we can afford to discount solar influence in the primitive Mexican cultus—or rather that adopted by the aboriginal peoples on embracing a settled agricultural existence—there remain to us the three elements of earth, grain, and rain from which to reconstruct the prototypes of the Mexican pantheon.