the old structures are seen in various parts of the present
town, some of them incorporated into new edifices built by the
Spaniards. Cyclopean remains of walls of the Temple of the Sun now
constitute a portion of the Convent of St. Domingo. In the days of the
Incas, this temple stood "a circuit of more than four hundred paces,"
and was surrounded by a great wall built of cut stone. Remains of the
old fortifications are seen; and there is an extensive ruin here which
shows what is supposed to be all that remains of the palace of the
Incas. Figures 56 and 57 give views of remains of the ancient fortress
walls at Cuzco. Occasionally there is search at Cuzco, by means of
excavation, for antiquities. Within a few years an important discovery
has been made; a lunar calendar of the Incas, made of gold, has been
exhumed. At first it was described as "a gold breastplate or sun;" but
William Bollaert, who gives an account of it, finds that it is a
calendar, the first discovered in Peru. Many others, probably, went to
the melting-pot at the time of the Conquest. This is not quite circular.
The outer ring is five inches and three tenths in diameter, and the
inner four inches. It was made to be fastened to the breast of an Inca
or priest. The figures were stamped on it, and there "seem to be
twenty-four compartments, large and small, including three at the top.
At the bottom are two spaces; figures may or may not have been there,
but it looks as if they had been worn away." It was found about the year
1859.

The uniform and constant report of Peruvian tradition places the
beginning of this old civilization in the Valley of Cuzco, near Lake
Titicaca. There appeared the first civilizers and the first civilized
communities. This beautiful valley is the most elevated table-land on
the continent, Lake Titicaca being 12,846 feet above the sea level. Were
it not within the tropics, it would be a region of eternal snow, for it
is more than 4000 feet higher than the beginning of perpetual snow on
Mont Blanc. Near it are some of the higher peaks of the Andes, among
them Sorato, Illimani, and Sahama.

OTHER RUINS IN PERU.

The ancient Peru conquered and robbed by Pizarro is now divided into
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili as far down as the thirty-seventh
degree of south latitude. Its remains are found to some extent in all
these countries, although most abundantly in Peru.

The ruins known as "the Palaces of Gran-Chimu" are situated