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or a people suddenly scattered as the Toltecs were--so suddenly as to leave temples half finished, and blocks of stone half hewn--would have no further use for copper tools; and hence the raw material would no longer have a value. In the abandoned quarries near Mitla, amid fragments of pillars and architraves and half-finished blocks of granite, copper axes, chisels, and wedges were found in abundance; but the same inordinate love of money that prompted adventurers to flock to Chiriqui, a few years since, to rob the ancient burying-grounds of their golden idols, induced others to search the old quarries and mines of Mexico and Central America, and take from them any relics that were intrinsically valuable. In Mexico, the mounds were built so that their summits were visible from every portion of the surrounding city, in order that the inhabitants might continually have in view the sacred fires that were ever kept burning on each side of the sacrificial altar. The same is strikingly true of the mounds at the West; for they are invariably placed so that their summits occupy a commanding position,--a circumstance that has induced many to suppose them to have been built for military purposes, and to have served as watch-towers. But when we reflect that the attacks of savage or half-civilized peoples are usually made in the night-time, we shall hardly suppose these structures were raised for any such purpose. The Pyramid of Cholula is composed of alternate layers of brick and clay, or possibly of burnt and unburnt brick; and others in Mexico are built of unburnt brick. Many of the mounds in the West are of clay,--perhaps of unburnt brick,--in situations where clay is not so abundant as other earths. I recollect visiting Circleville, Ohio, when it was really a _Circle_-ville. An octagonal court-house stood upon an ancient mound, and the dwellings and stores were built upon an ancient circular wall of earth that encompassed an area around the mound. South of this circular inclosure, and joining it, was a square inclosure of several acres, surrounded by a wall about ten feet high. What is remarkable, this square wall--and we presume the same is true also of the mound and circular wall--was built of clay, perhaps of unburnt brick, that must have been transported a considerable distance; for no clay exists upon that alluvial bottom, and the nearest point where it is found is three fourths of a mile distant, across a considerabl
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