C.
THE exploring expedition under French and American patronage, led by M. Désiré Charnay, began its labors in Mexico, May 1st, 1880, and continued them nearly a year. During this time a large number of ruins, scattered over the area extending from Teotihuacan and Tollan, on the north, and Palenque, on the south, are reported to have been examined. How thorough the examination was, or how scientifically accurate were the published reports, it would at present (September, 1881) be impossible to determine. Suffice it to say that they are generally viewed with distrust, partly on account of the disjointed, haphazard form in which they have appeared in the North American Review (September, 1880-June, 1881—doubtless without blame on the part of the editor), where the splendid heliotype illustrations have been rendered nearly valueless by the frequent omission, from the text and elsewhere, of descriptive reference; and partly on account of the over-confident style of the writer. It is to be hoped that the ground for criticism may be removed when M. Charnay shall formally publish his reports.
It would be superfluous in this connection to summarize his work, since his papers are accessible to all.
It is worthy of note, however, that he reports Teotihuacan, on the authority of several authors, to have contained twenty-seven thousand dwellings, besides its temples, and that the heaps of ruins which remain justify the statement. The whole area of five or six miles in diameter was found covered with heaps of ruins. Cement roadways, containing broken pottery, seemed to afford evidence of occupancy in even a more ancient epoch than that in which Teotihuacan was founded. Excavations revealed two halls of a supposed temple at the base of one of the pyramids. One of these halls is reported to be nearly fifty feet square, in the middle of which stood six pillars which had served to sustain the roof. At Tula, the ancient capital of Tollau, north-west of the city of Mexico, hitherto so fruitless of archæological, and especially of architectural remains, M. Charnay made remarkable discoveries of pyramids, and several Toltec houses of immense proportions, one of which contained forty-three apartments, besides corridors and a staircase. Sculptures were numerous, and bricks of burnt clay, twelve inches long by five inches wide, were found to have been used in constructing stairways.
Near the village of Comalcalco, thirty-five or forty miles north-west of San Juan Bautista, the capital of Tabasco, vast ruins were discovered, particularly pyramids, towers, and edifices, all forest-grown, equalling and even surpassing in proportions those at Palenque. Upon a pyramid 115 feet high an edifice of brick and mortar 234 feet in length was explored.
At the village of Palenque, M. Charnay found the two bas-reliefs seen by Waldeck and Stephens a half century ago, now built into the outer wall of a church (see this work, p. 391).
At the ancient city itself the explorer discovered the ruins to be more extensive than ever heretofore supposed, and estimates that it would require the labor of five hundred men for six months, under the direction of a corps of topographers, simply to determine the general plan of the city. Eight hundred and sixty-one square feet of casts of bas-reliefs were taken. It was ascertained at Palenque, by breaking off portions of the vesture upon the stucco reliefs, that the human body had in all cases been first carefully modeled, and that the drapery had subsequently been superposed. Whether this fact throws light simply upon the process employed, or indicates a reaction or evolution in art, is equally interesting and uncertain.