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Show AMONG THE AZTECS. 283 only wonder is that they are not totally extinct, or ring- streaked, speckled, and grizzled. In the " good old time" when the Pueblos were ten times as numerous, intermarriages took place between the various towns, their language was nearly the same, and they were prolific and progressive. Now they constitute but little islands^ as it were, in an ocean of Utes, Navajoes, and Apaches; the separated towns have gradually grown apart, and become distinct nations; they have no central priesthood or ecclesiastical connection ; their religion and learning steadily decay, and even the tradition of a common ori-gin is fast becoming obscure. Perhaps a theory as to the origin of the Pueblos may be constructed by a system of comparative ethnology and archaeology. Beginning in the Ohio Valley, there is a regular line of ancient works down to the central section of the Andes. The Scioto and Licking valleys are thickly dotted with the works of some race to whom we have given the vague title of Mound- Builders. There is the great circle at New-ark, which now incloses the fair- grounds; the square and circular fortification near Chillicothe ; the Great Serpent in Adams County, 1,000 feet long; the funereal mound, fort, and intrenched way at Marietta, and hundreds of others in adjacent districts. There is the Pyramid at Seltzertown, Mississippi, six hundred feet long and forty feet high ; and two thousand other mounds and fortifications described by Sqiiier and Davis in their work, an authentic document published by the Smithsonian Institution. But as we go south- west the ruins are larger and nearer their origi-nal condition. Had our predecessors built of stone instead of wood, we should doubtless have found such in Ohio. There are the great Casas Grandes on the Gila; the remains of the original or Aztec City of Mexico ; the immense pyramids at Xochicalco and Cholula ; the City of Tulha, ancient capital of the Toltecs, and a regular line of ancient cities runs down through Central Mexico and into Guatemala, from which, and the inscriptions on them, we learn much of the com-mon life of the Aztecs and their predecessors. Every- where there are tumuli, acecquias, and aguadas, or artificial ponds. Yucatan is dotted with the ruins of cities, temples, and palaces. The great forests cov-ering a large part of Guatemala and adjacent States, an area the size of Ohio, contains the key to America's ancient history. There is con-clusive evidence that it once contained from five to ten million in-habitants. The facts are to be found in the works of Del Rio, who explored part of it in the last century; of Captain Dupaix, who pen-etrated far enough to get exact measurements of the largest towns; of |