without beasts of burden or implements of any kind, and by passing the brick from hand to hand, surpasses the calculations of all scientists.
It is built of adobe bricks of irregular size, from sixteen to twenty-three inches in length. The erection of this stupendous structure could never have been imposed upon freemen, and must have been the work of slaves or prisoners of war. According to Prescott, the base covers about forty-four acres—other authorities say sixty—
PYRAMID OF CHOLULA.
while Baron Humboldt suggests a comparison with "a square four times greater than the Place Vendôme in Paris, covered with layers of brick, rising to twice the elevation of the Louvre." The platform on the summit is more than an acre in extent.
The sides of the mound face the cardinal points; but the regularity of its outlines has been broken and defaced by time, and the whole surface is covered with the dirt and vegetable growth of ages. From this circumstance many have supposed that the elevation was not artificial, at least as regards its interior; but so far as explorations
