digested the following description. Involved as almost all antiquarian researches are in obscurity, and free as those who engage in them are to mix up their fancies and theories with the slightest facts upon which they can found a hypothesis, I confess that I do not rely entirely upon the surmises of the writers I have cited. Yet they are the only persons who have hitherto attempted to unravel the mystery, and I am therefore obliged either to present their conjectures or none.
The large head in the centre, with a protruding tongue, is said to represent the sun; while the triangular figures marked with the letter R, and the other figures marked with the letter L, denote the larger and lesser rays with which the Indians surrounded that luminary.
Around this central sun are four squares, denoted by A, B, C, D, which, together with the circular figures E F at the sides of the triangle, I, at the top, and the character H at the bottom, combined, (according to De Gama,) to form the symbol of the sun's movement—or perhaps the symbols of the four weeks into which the month was divided.
The hieroglyphs denoted by the numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c. up to 20, are the days of the month, and the rest of the figures around the zone are somewhat fancifully said to represent the milky way known to the ancients by the name of Citlalinycue. By an equal stretch of the imagination, the waving lines, marked V, are supposed to indicate the clouds, which were venerated as gods called Almaque, the inseparable companions of Tlaloc. De Gama thinks that the small squares at e are symbols of the mountains where the clouds are formed. Such are the satisfactory conjectures of antiquarians!
Gnomons were placed in the holes at X, Z, PP, QQ, and YY; the stone was then set up vertically due east and west, with its carved face to the south, and by means of threads stretched from the tops of the gnomons and the shadows they cast on the surface of the stone, the seasons of the year, and the periods of the day, were determined with astronomical accuracy.
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Various other carved stones intended for astronomical purposes, have been discovered at different times throughout the Valley of Mexico and its neighborhood. De Gama relates, that "in the year 1775, while laborers were excavating at the hill of Chalpultepec, they laid bare a cluster of curiously sculptured rocks, which, after a careful examination, he believed had once formed a portion of the system by which the Mexicans determined the exact periods of sunrise and sunset at the equinoxes, and regulated the time during the remainder of the year." But when he returned to the hill for the purpose of further investigation, he found these rocks and all their carving had been destroyed by the ignorant excavators,
