Note V-82 — Chapter V · ANTIQUITIES OF YUCATAN. (continued 2)

'Had the Spaniards selected this for the site of their city of Valladolid, a few leagues distant, it is highly probable that not a vestige of the ancient edifices would now be seen.' Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 174. 'Lieu qui offre beaucoup l'apparence d'une ville sainte.' Friederichsthal, loc. cit., p. 300. Dr Arthur Schott discourses, in the Smithsonian Rept., 1871, pp. 423-5, on a face, or mask, of 'semiagatized xyolite, still bearing the marks of silicified coniferous wood, a fossil probably foreign to the soil of the peninsula.' It was found at Chichen, and the Doctor thinks it may have some deep mythologic meaning, which he generously leaves to some other ethnologist to decipher. Norman, Rambles in Yuc., p. 127, states that the hewn blocks of stone at Chichen are uniformly 12 by 6 inches. M. Waldeck, Voy. Pitt., p. 47, speaks of a reported silver collar bearing an inscription in Greek, Hebrew, and Phœnician letters, found in the 'grottes cristallines de Chixhen.' But even this enthusiastic antiquarian looks at this report with much distrust.