what was formerly an island in the Lake of Tezcuco.[1] The ancient city is said to have been founded on July 18, 1325. Some of the houses were constructed on piles, like the prehistoric Swiss lake-dwellings. In order to protect the capital from the inundations of the surrounding lakes, a system of dikes was established by the Aztecs, the remnants of which exist to the present day. In 1466 Montezuma I, after a disastrous flood in Tenochtitlan, ordered a dike to be constructed, which was 39,360[2] feet long and 65 feet wide.
At the time of the Conquest the ancient capital was entered by the Spaniards under Cortes on the 8th day of November, 1519. After a residence of about seven months, he was compelled to evacuate it. In the following year, with the aid of brigantines on Lake Texcoco, which were built especially for the purpose, in the neighboring hills, the Conqueror attacked and besieged the city. The siege lasted seventy-five days, when the Aztecs surrendered to the invaders. Soon afterward the Spaniards destroyed Tenochtitlan, and built a capital of their own on the same site, which has since borne the name of Mexico. Cortes made a great mistake in founding the modern city on the site of the old one, which was situated on soft ground, and involved an expensive system of dikes and causeways. It would have been preferable to have selected an elevated spot in the vicinity, like Tacubaya, about six miles south of the capital. Scarcely a vestige remains of the ancient metropolis. Several Aztec monuments, such as the calendar and sacrificial stones, and a few idols, have been dug up on the site of Tenochtitlan; but the ruins of not even a single house or temple can be found to-day. These relics were practically incapable of destruction. Accordingly, they were buried.
The teocalli, or pyramid of the ancient capital, was much smaller than those of San Juan Teotihuacan and
