Page:Atlantis - The Antediluvian World (1882).djvu/411

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THE PERUVIAN COLONY.
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temples, and palaces arise on every band, mined but still traceable. Immense pyramidal structures, some of them half a mile in circuit; vast areas shut in by massive walls, eacb containing its water-tank, its shops, municipal edifices, and the dwellings of its inhabitants, and each a branch of a larger organization; prisons, furnaces for smelting metals, and almost every concomitant of civilization, existed in the ancient Chimu capital. One of the great pyramids, called the "Temple of the Sun," is 812 feet long by 470 wide, and 150 high. These vast structures have been ruined for centuries, but still the work of excavation is going on.

One of the centres of the ancient Quichua civilization was around Lake Titicaca. The buildings here, as throughout Peru, were all constructed of hewn stone, and had doors and windows with posts, sills, and thresholds of stone.

At Cuelap, in Northern Peru, remarkable ruins were found. "They consist of a wall of wrought stones 3600 feet long, 560 broad, and 150 high, constituting a solid mass with a level summit. On this mass was another 600 feet long, 500 broad, and 150 high," making an aggregate height of three hundred feet! In it were rooms and cells which were used as tombs.

Very ancient ruins, showing remains of large and remarkable edifices, were found near Huamanga, and described by Cieça de Leon. The native traditions said this city was built "by bearded white men, who came there long before the time of the Incas, and established a settlement."

"The Peruvians made large use of aqueducts, which they built with notable skill, using hewn stones and cement, and making them very substantial." One extended four hundred and fifty miles across sierras and over rivers. Think of a stone aqueduct reaching from the city of New York to the State of North Carolina!

The public roads of the Peruvians were most remarkable; they were built on masonry. One of these roads ran along the mountains through the whole length of the empire, from

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