that are still preserved. So that the Aztec civilization resolves itself into the very ancient
PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA.
We have removed to a greater antiquity, but have not got rid of the question of the origin of Mexican civilization. The year 600, named by Humboldt, may be considered as the time of their appearance on the table-land; out many of the ruins in the hot country might claim a thousand years earlier antiquity.
These massive remains must have stood, abandoned as they are now, in the midst of the forest, for a long time before the Conquest, as their very existence was unknown to the Spaniards until near the close of the last century.
The close resemblance between the apparently most ancient of these works, and those of the Egyptianss and other Eastern civilizations, does not involve the idea of a common origin or of intercourse, but only leads to the suggestion that the human race, in its progress, naturally follows the same path, whether upon the eastern or western continent, and that it is separated by a cycle of thousands of years from the civilization of our day.
As a specimen of the works of the Toltecs, I insert a sketch of the pyramid of Papantla.