The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1890-05-08
THE POMPEH OF AMERICA.
Wonders of the Buried City of Palenque
in Central America.

The buried city of Palenque, Mexico,
is beyond question the most interest
inc ruin in America, if not in the
world, says the Pittsburg Dispatch.
The very race and language of the peO-
has vet interpreted the hieroglyphics
which cover its massive walls. Per-
haps the strangest thing connected with
this extraordinary place is the fact
that, although the engineering skill in
dicated in its ruins is III many respects
akin to that of the ancient Egypt
ians, antiquarians and Psychologists
have never investigated the ruins
or sought to interpret these craven
records of long forgotten race.
In 1850 party OF Spaniards were
travelling in the interior of Mexico.
They had wandered in search of things
strange and new into the region north
of Chiapas. when they suddenly came,
in the midst of a vast solitude, to in
Vulnerable ancient stone buildings, the
remains of a vast city still embracing
from eighteen to twenty-four miles in
extent and known to the Indians as
Casas de Piedars. The Indians them
origin. Two exploring parties were
afterward sent out by Spain, without,
however, attaining any appreciable re-
suits. A third exploration was made
in 1910 by American travellers. They
found the ruins Oyergrown with so
dense a forest Of gigantic trees and
tangled underground that Il person ten
yards distant in any direction could
not be SEEN As the travellers had no
axes, picks, or shovels, but only the
machete, the short, broad-bladed
sword of the Indians, with which to
clear this accumulation of centuries of
luxuriant vegetable growth and make
systematic observations, but little could
be accomplished. A vast number of
fine buildings, however, were dis
covered, constructed of stone. with IA
mortar of lime and sand, the outer
walls of which were covered with
stucco and painted in pigments of
various colors, and Enthusiastically orna-
mented with figures in bas-relief and
with intaglio inscriptions in hero
glyphics. Interspersed with these were
palaces, pyramids, and temples, and
there were also the remains of an
aqueduct by which the city was sup
piled with water.
One of the buildings, which was in
course of construction, stood on a
pyramid 10 feet high. 1t was Sc feet
long, % feet deep, and about 80 feet
high. 1t was very richly ornamented
externally, and on the interior walls
were tables of hieroglyphic inscriptions
carved in symmetrical lines out of
stone One was only about half
finished when the work was arrested
forever by the unknown catastrophe
that came like the thief in the night, !"
and obiterated the race of builders
and all knowledge of their literature.
The solution of these inscriptions
would in all probability reveal things
that are more interesting and important
from an ethnic point of view than the
discoveries at Herculaneum and POM
peii. Only one statue was discovered,
that of a female figure 10 feet 6 inches
high, and more resembling Egyptian
portrait statuary than anything else
found in this new ''old world But it
can be safely regarded as an indication
that that there are other statues and
monuments in the forest around.