kneeling figure has fallen but above the place which the neck occupied is a globe partially supported by the hands of the person opposite. On the outskirts of the main group of the buildings and extending to the base of the hills, are scattered the house sites of the common people who probably built them as the Mayas do now, in thatched roof huts, the walls often being built of adobe or sundried mud.

Excavations among these house sites reveal the presence of the three stone fire-place or koben which is still used by the Mayas-a clay griddle being placed over it for baking tortillas.

On the summits of all the hills surrounding Labna are the remains of solitary buildings which once served as watch towers or temples. The sides of the hills show the remains of terraces which were probably utilized for gardens.

Explorations at Labna as well as in other places in Yucatan and Central America have shown that the stone used in the construction of the buildings was quarried and transported in the rough, to the place where the building was to be erected. It was then cut in the required shape and the chips used with cement to fill in the space between the inner and outer faced wall and in the construction of the roof.

Stone chisels were used in dressing the stone and in proof of this a number of these implements have been found on the ancient quarry sites.

The cement used was the saccab, (white earth) a natural, decomposed lime rock, which is found in abundance throughout Yucatan.

The priests and nobility who lived in the stone edifices, were usually buried in small chambers or tombs beneath the floors of the buildings. A number of these tombs have been opened, and it was found that they were made when the buildings were constructed. They are made with stone or cemented floors, walled sides, and with flat slabs of stone placed over the top. The floor above was always macadamized and covered with cement to the depth of several inches.

When a person died the floor was torn up and the remains were placed in the tomb after which the floor was repaired and no evidence of its having been disturbed could be seen. These tombs are small and the body must have been doubled up in order to place it in the vault.

Sometimes two tombs were made under the same floor, and several have been found empty, with nothing to show that any burial had ever been made in them.

Vases and personal ornamens such as beads and amulets were usually placed with the body but no textile fabrics have yet been found. The bones are usually in such a condition as to be of little use to the anatomist. The tombs that have been found at Labna are air and water tight, and consequently the decay of the bones indicates considerable antiquity.

It is probable that each city had places set apart for the burial of the common people, but such burial places have, as yet, never been found, and the chances of ever finding them are slight because of the ravages of ants.

The approach to a representation of the Greek Atlas on the Temple facade must not be taken as evidence of connection or influence from the "Old World".

The Greek fret" is found in the facades of many of the buildings of Yucatan. The triangular arch was used in Cambodia, Asia, and the buildings

there show great similarity to those of Yucatan. Cross legged figures very closely resembling the archaic type of Buddha are not uncommon and would unquestionably be mistaken for carvings from India, if seen in a museum, unlabelled. Moreover the worship of the Serpent is found to have prevailed as largely in Central America as in India. Phallic worship as in India, Egypt, Greece and Rome was probably practiced here and buildings ornamented with Phallic emblems once existed in Uxmal, Labna and Copan.

Sun and fire worship also had their share in the religious thought of the ancient Mayas. Many resemblances to the art of ancient Egypt have also been noted. Yet even with the light of recent discoveries, no single point can be conclusively proved to have been the result of tradition or of foreign influence. In fact, more intimate knowledge of the antiquities of Central America and Yucatan, leads us, inevitably, to the conclusion of an indigenuous civilization, uninfluenced by any of the historic nations.

The many curious similarities simply showing that the human mind works practically in the same channels the world over, arriving at certain stages of religious thought sooner or later. This evolution of the religious idea among the ancient Mayas will no doubt be traced in the symbolic carvings on monuments and buildings when a more complete comprehension of their meaning is worked out.

THE OHIO LLAMA.

[BY J. F. SNYDER, M. D., VIRGINIA, ILL.]

One autumn day, several years ago, when the tide of migration of people from the middle states to Kansas and Nebraska was at its height, a "mover" from the east stopped his team at the hitching rack on our public square to obtain some necessary supplies and make the usual inquiries about the distance to the Illinois river, and the most direct route to the nearest crossing place of the Mississippi beyond. The man's team and covered wagon were in fair condition, with dusty evidence of long continued road service, but not materially differing from similar outfits that daily traversed our streets westward bound. The wagon, followed by a couple of dogs, contained the usual equipment of bedding, clothing, and cooking utensils, together with four children and their mother in somewhat squalid attire. The man himself was apparently middle-aged, tall, lean, roughly dressed and illiterate-a fair type of the western bee-hunter, a race now almost extinct. Wanting medicine for a sick child he was directed to my office. On my table were lying, as was― and is often the case, several stone implements of the prehistoric Indians that I had recently received. These attracted his attention and he asked me if I “paid anything for such rocks". I informed him that I did sometimes

when I could not get them as gifts. He then told me that in leaving his old home in Ohio, to find a new one in the west, his children had gathered up a lot of Indian relics that had been around the house for some time and had put them in the wagon; and, if they were still there, he would sell them if he could get anything for them.

Since starting out from Ohio, he said, he had met with bad luck that delayed his progress and well nigh exhausted his slender means. One of his horses had died and he had to buy another one to replace it; and then he "had to lay by a right smart spell on expenses" on the account of the serious sickness of a child then hardly convalescent. I went with him to his wagon, and, while I examined the little invalid, he rummaged about the wagon until he finally drew out a dirty little sack, the contents of which he emptied on the wagon seat. Besides dirt and a few common water-worn pebbles the collection comprised three ordinary grooved axes and two celts of greenstone, a rude discoidal stone, several arrow and spear points and scrapers of flint, pieces of broken pottery and the image of the Llama represented by Fig. 1, drawn in half of its actual size, which, he explained, was "a pipe, like a deer, that they hadn't finished", and depreciated in value in his estimation because unfinished. My

familiarity with the books of travel of Von Tschudi and Rivera. of Ewbanks and Herndon and Gibbon, and others, in Peru, enabled me at a glance to recognize in this "unfinished pipo" a rare and valuable archaeological specimen, and I bought the lot without hesitation.

Actively engaged at the time in pursuits that demanded all of my time and attention to the exclusion of amateur scientific studies, I overlooked the importance of acquiring from the man the exact details of this discovery that would enable me in future to verify his story. In my eagerness to secure the Llama it did not occur to me to ask his name, or to inquire the precise locality in Miami county in which he had resided, or what particular portion of the west was his intended destination.

He said he was a native of Ohio and had lived since his marriage on a small farm not far from the Miami river, and that these relics, with the exception of the Llama, several arrow-points, one of the celts and the fragments of pottery, had been picked up by himself and the children in the "washes" and

fields about his place. There was in his field a low flat mound that had been plowed over ever since the place was first cleared of timber. Last spring when "breaking his corn ground" in passing over this mound the plow turned up some human bones including part of a skull. Prompted by curiosity he got his is spade and dug down a foot or more, for the space of two or three feet around, and found, with more of the human skeleton, that fell in pieces on handling, the Llama and other objects mentioned.

This comprises absolutely all that is known of the discovery of this strange exotic relic of a still stranger and unknown race.

This man was a fair type of the poor and shiftless small farmers and tenants common to all parts of the west. He had probably spent the greater part of his time in fishing and hunting, or idling; and his wagon and horses represented no doubt the product of his labor for years. He could neither read nor write. The idea of practicing fraud, or counterfeiting remains of antiquity could never have occurred to him, for he had never before thought that genuine relics of aboriginal art had a market value. The modest price he placed upon the specimens, and the simplicity of his language and manners, and evident illiteracy, had all the elements of honest candor, leaving no room or rea son whatever to doubt the strict truth of his narrative.

This unique object, fairly well represented in the accompanying cut, Fig. 1, was, beyond all reasonable doubt, fashioned by a native artist of Peru during the reign of the Incas. It is remarkably well proportioned and finely polished, cut out of hard quartzite of variegated dull colors, so that the head and upper part of the neck and body are yellowish brown and the rest nearly white. Its extreme length, from nose to tail, is five inches; its head is three and three fourths inches high, and its back two and three fourths inches; and its thickness, or width from side to side, is rather more than an inch and a half. The excavation in its back, which widens out below the orifice, is fiveeighths of an inch in diameter at the surface enlarging to seven-eighths, and is one inch in depth.

Images in stone of the Llama and its relatives, similar to this one, were seen in Peru at the beginning of the present century by Humboldt and Bonpland, and forty years later by Von Tschudi. In the report of Mr. Thomas Ewbank, who accompanied, as naturalist, the U. S. Naval Astronomical Expedition to the southern hemisphere, under command of Lieut. Gillis, in the years 1849 to 1852, he presents the cut, also reproduced in the Appendix of his Life in Brazil, of which Fig. 2 is a copy, with a brief description of each object figured. Figure "N" in this collection of twneny-one that he saw was carved of hard wood with plugs of gold representing the eyes. All the others were shaped of stone of different degrees of hardness, and all had, as mine, the cavity in the back, shown by the dotted lines, slightly enlarging below the orifice.

For what purpose these strange effigies were made, and how used, is unknown. A variety of conjectures have been advanced to solve the problem of their utility; but they still remain as inscrutable an enigma as was the purpose of the discoidal stones found in this region.

Mr. Ewbank thought they were mortars, and, in support of this idea, says: "The Peruvians used tobacco in the form of snuff. They also prepared the leaves of the coco and other plants for medical purposes by grinding; hence the demand for small mortars." Their use as salt-cellars has been suggested.

Von Tschudi remarks: "Under the dynasty of the Incas the Peruvians rendered almost divine worship to the llama and his relatives, which exclusively furnished them with wool for clothing, and with flesh for food. Their temples were adorned with large figures of these animals made of gold and silver; and their forms were represented in domestic utensils of stone and clay. In the valuable collection of B. C. Von Hagel, of Vienna, there are four of these vessels, composed of porphyry, basalt and granite representing the four spe

cies, viz: the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuna. These antiquities are ex ceedingly scarce, and when I was in Peru I was unable to obtain any of them. How the ancient Peruvians, without the aid of iron tools, were able to carve stone so beautifully, is inconceivable."

Lieut. Lardner Gibbon, in his report of the exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, 1854, figures, on page 60, one of these stone llamas, almost the counterpart of my Fig. 1, that he saw at Cuzco, and calls it a "drinking Weup!"