that the largest of these pyramids are two, one of which bore the name of the Sun and the other the name of the Moon. Moreover, my eye was caught by statues and raised carvings on these pyramids that are most like the carvings and figures of India, and not far from the carvings of the Babylonians and the Chaldeans. And since the three pyramids of Giza are smooth, with neither terraces nor ornament, I had to ask myself again and again whether Mexico had taken, in ancient times, the idea of the pyramid — and the religious purposes it enfolds — from some source other than Egypt; especially since there has been found among the ruins of Babylon evidence that the ancient Babylonians built their lofty towers in the form of a pyramid stepped in terraces, each terrace smaller in area than the one beneath it, after the manner of the pyramids of Mexico.

And if we grant this view, what then shall we say of

the statue crouching before the entrance of the Temple of the Warriors in the ruins of Chichen Itza, in the region of Yucatan? If the idea of the pyramids was not carried over from the Pharaohs, but was taken from others, shall we say that this great statue, which represents a woman's head upon the body of an animal, is likewise not borrowed from the Sphinx couched at Giza?

Then what shall we say of

those inscriptions found in Mexico upon the tombs of certain great chieftains and elsewhere, which resemble the Egyptian hiero-glyphic writing carved upon stone and papyrus?

Such knowledge remains a secret among secrets, for the excavation of antiquities in Mexico goes back only to the opening of this century. Perhaps time will unveil these riddles for us.