Note IX-80 — Chapter IX · ANTIQUITIES OF THE CENTRAL PLATEAUX.

'Leur noyau est d'argile mêlée de petites pierres: il est revêtu d'un mur épais de tezontli ou amygdaloïde poreuse.' Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 101-2. 'On y reconnoît, en outre, des traces d'une couche de chaux qui enduit les pierres par dehors.' Id., Essai Pol., tom. i., p. 157. 'In many places, I discovered the remains of the coating of cement with which they were incrusted in the days of their perfection.' Mayer's Mex. as it Was, p. 223. 'Arcilla y piedras,' covered with a conglomerate of tetzontli and mud, and a coating of polished lime, which has a blue tint. Linares, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 3ra época, tom. i., pp. 103-5. 'En argile ... avec révêtement en pierre.' Chevalier, Mexique, p. 50. 'No trace of regular stone work or masonry of any kind.' Bullock's Across Mex., p. 165. Originally covered with a white cement bearing inscriptions. Glennie, according to Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1831, tom. li., pp. 238-9. Built of clay and stone. Heller, Reisen, p. 157. Salmon-colored Stucco. Latrobe. Unhewn stones of all shapes and sizes. Thompson. Stones and pebbles, faced with porous stone. García. Adobes, stones, clay, and mortar, with a casing of hewn stone and smooth stucco. Tylor. A conglomerate of common volcanic stones and mud mortar with the faces smoothed. Beaufoy. Masses of falling stone and masonry, red cement, 8 or 10 inches thick, of lime and pebbles. Bullock. 'It is true, that on many parts of the ascent masses of stone and other materials, strongly cemented together, announce the devices and workmanship of man; but on penetrating this exterior coating nothing further was perceptible than a natural structure of earth' like any natural hill with many loose stones. An American engineer who had made excavations confirmed the idea that the pyramids were natural, although artificially shaped. Tudor's Nar., vol. ii., p. 278.