Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1890 — THE POMPEH OF AMERICA. [ARTICLE]

THE POMPEH OF AMERICA.

Wonders of the Buried City of Palenqa* In Central America. The buried city of Palenque, Mexico, is beyond question the most interesting ruin in America, if not in the world, says the Pittsburg Dispatch. The very race and language of the peoSle who built it are lost, and no one as yet interpreted the hieroglyphics cover its massive walls. Perhaps the strangest thing connected with this extraordinary place is the fact that, although the engineering skill indicated in its ruins is in many respects akin to that of the ancient Egyptians, antiquarians and Egyptologists have never investigated the ruins or sought to interpret these graven records of a long-forgotten race. In 1750 a party of Spaniards were traveling 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, tq_ innumerable ancient stone buildings, the remains of a vast city still embracing from eighteen to twenty-four miles ic extent, and known to the Indians as Casas de Piedars. The Indians themselves could give no account of its origin. Two exploring parties were afterward sent out by Spain, without. however, attaining any appreciable results. A third exploration was made in 1840 by American travelers. They found the ruins overgrown with sc dense a forest of gigantic trees and tangled undergrowth that a person ten yards distant in any direction r-milil not be seen. As the travelers luul uc axes, picks, or shovels, but only the machete, the short, broad-bladed sword of the Indians, with which te clear this accumulation of centuries oi luxuriant vegetable growth and make systematic observations, but little could be accomplished. A vast number oJ fine buildings, however, were discovered, constructed of stone, with a mortar of lime and sand, the outer walls of which were covered with stucco and painted in pigments ol various colors, and fantastically ornamented with figures in bas-reiief anil with intaglio inscriptions in hieroglyphics. Interspersed with these were palaces, pyramids, and temples, amt there were also the remains of an aqueduct by which the city was supplied with water. One of the buildings, which was in course of construction, stood on n pyramid 110 feet high. It was 56 feet long, 25 feet deep, and about 30 feet high. It was very richly ornamented externally, and on the interior walls were tables of hieroglyphic inscriptions carved in symmetrical lines out ol 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 obliterated the race of builders and all knowledge of their literature. The solution of these inscriptions would in all probability., reveals things that are more Interesting and important from an ethnic point of view than the discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii. 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.