Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/160

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GREAT TEOCALLI.
117
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The top of this pyramid (as appears from the design) was not reached by a flight of steps from the base on the front of the edifice but by a stairway passing from body to body; so that a person, in ascending, was obliged to move four times around the whole of the Teocalli before he reached its summit. The width of these spaces or stones, at the base of each body, was five or six feet, and it is alleged that three or four persons abreast could easily pass round them.

There is some difference of opinion among the old writers, as to the dimensions of the mound; but Clavigero, after a laborious investigation, comes to the conclusion, "that the first body or base of the building, was more than fifty perches long from east to west, and about forty-three in breath from north to south; the second body was about a perch less in length and breadth; the third so much less than the second, and the rest in proportion." Dr. McCulloh, relying on Gomara and Humboldt, states that the mound was faced with stone, and was 320 feet square at the base, and 120 feet high.

In the drawing just given, it will be observed that there are turn towers erected on the upper surface, and Clavigero so describes the edifice; but the learned author of Researches on American Aboriginal History, found-