other streets.

. The rains had been very abundant; and the engineer stopt up the subterraneous passage. The city of Mexico was in the morning inundated to the height of a metre*. The Plaza Mayor, la Plaza del Volador, and the suburb of Tlatelolco, alone remained dry. Boats went up and down the Martinez was committed to prison. It was pretended that he had shut up the gallery to give the incredulous a manifest and negative proof of the utility of his work; but the engineer declared that, seeing the mass of water was too considerable to be received into his narrow gallery, he preferred exposing the capital to the temporary danger of an inundation, to seeing destroyed in one day, by the impetuosity of the water, the labours of so many years. Contrary to every expectation, Mexico remained inundated for five years, from 1629 to 1634. The streets were passed in boats, as had been done before the conquest in the old Tenochtitlan. Wooden bridges were constructed along the sides of the houses for the convenience of foot passengers.

In this interval four different projects were presented and discussed by the Marquis de Ceralvo, the viceroy. An inhabitant of Valladolid, Simon Mendez, affirmed in a memoir, that the

* 3 feet. Trans.

+ Several memoirs bear that the inundation only lasted till 1631, but that it broke out afresh towards the end of the year 1633.

ground of the valley of Tenochtitlan rose considerably on the N. W. side towards Huehuetoca, and the hill of Nochistongo; that the point where Martinez had opened the chain of mountains which circularly shuts in the valley corresponds to the mean level of the most elevated lake (Zumpango), and not to the level of the lowest (Tezcuco); and that the ground of the valley falls considerably to the north of the village of Carpio, east from the lakes of Zumpango and San Christobal. Mendez proposed to draw off the water of the lake of Tezcuco by a gallery which should pass between Xaltocan and Santa Lucia, and open into the brook (arroyo) of Tequisquiac, which, as has been already observed, falls into the Rio de Moctesuna or Tula. Mendez began this desague, projected at the lowest point; and four pits of ventilation (lumbreras) were already completed, when the government, perpetually irresolute and vacillating, abandoned the undertaking as being too long and too expensive. Another desiccation of the valley was projected in 1630 by Antonio Roman, and Juan Alvarez de Toledo, at an intermediate point, by the lake of San Christobal, the waters of which were proposed to be conducted to the ravin (barranca) of Huiputztla, north of the village of San Mateo, and four leagues west from the small town of Pachuca. The viceroy and audiencia paid as little attention to this project

as to another of the mayor of Oculma, Christobal de Padilla, who, having discovered three perpendicular caverns, or natural gulphs (boquerones), even in the interior of the small town of Oculma, wished to avail himself of these holes for drawing off the water of the lakes. The small river of Teotihuacan is lost in these boquerones. Padilla proposed to turn also the water of the lake of Tezcuco into them, by bringing it to Oculma through the farm of Tezquititlan.

This idea of availing themselves of the natural caverns formed in the strata of porous amygdaloid gave rise to an analogous and equally gigantic project, in the head of Francisco Calderon the jesuit. This monk pretended that at the bottom of the lake of Tezcuco, near the Penol de los Baños, there was a hole (sumidero), which, on being enlarged, would swallow up all the water. He endeavoured to support this assertion by the testimony of the most intelligent Indians, and by old Indian maps. The viceroy commissioned the prelates of all the religious or ders (who no doubt were likely to be best informed in hydraulical matters) to examine this project. The monks and jesuit kept sounding in vain for three months, from September till December, 1635; but no sumidero was ever found, though, even yet, many Indians believe as firmly in its existence as Father Calderon. Whatever geological opinion may be formed of

the volcanic or neptunian origin of the porous amygdaloid (blasiger Mandelstein) of the valley of Mexico, it is very improbable that this problematical rock contains hollows of dimension enough to receive the water of the lake of Tezcuco, which even in time of drought ought to be estimated at more than 251,700,000 cubic metres. It is only in secondary strata of gypsum, as in Thuringia, where we can sometimes venture to conduct inconsiderable masses of water into natural caverns (gypsschlotten); where galleries of discharge opened from the interior of a mine of coppery schistus are allowed to terminate, without any concern about the ulterior direction taken by the waters which impede the metallic operations. But how is it possible to employ this local measure in the case of a great hydraulical operation?

During the inundation of Mexico, which lasted five successive years, the wretchedness of the lower orders was singularly increased. Commerce was at a stand, many houses tumbled down, and others were rendered uninhabitable. In these unfortunate times the Archbishop Fran. cisco Manzo y Zuniga distinguished himself by his beneficence. He went about daily in his canoe distributing bread among the poor. The court of Madrid gave orders a second time to transfer the city into the plains between Tacuba and Tacubaya; but the magistracy (cabildo) re

presented that the value of the edifices (fincas) which, in 1607, amounted to 1500 millions of livres, now amounted to more than 200 millions*. In the midst of these calamities the viceroy ordered the image of the holy virgin of Guadalupet to be brought to Mexico. She remain

8,334,000l. sterling. Trans.

In public calamities the inhabitants of Mexico have recourse to the two celebrated images of Nuestra Senora de la Guadalupe, and de los Remedios. The first is looked upon as indigenous, having first made its appearance among flowers in the handkerchief of an Indian; and the second was brought from Spain at the period of the conquest. The spirit of party which exists between the Creoles and Europeans (Gachupines) gives a particular turn to their devotion. The lower orders of Creoles and Indians are extremely discontented when the archbishop, during great droughts, orders in preference the image of the virgin de los Remedios to be brought to Mexico. Hence the proverb characteristic of the mutual hatred of the casts: Every thing, even our water, must come to us from Europe (hasta el agua nos debe venir de la Gachupina!). If, notwithstanding the residence of the holy virgin de los Remedios, the drowth continues, as some very rare examples of it are pretended to have taken place, the archbishop permits the Indians to go in quest of the image of our lady of Guadalupe. This permission diffuses gladness among the Mexican people, especially when the long droughts terminate (as they do every where else) in abundant rains. I have seen works of trigonometry printed in New Spain dedicated to the holy virgin of Guadalupe. On the hill of Tepejacać, at the foot of which her rich sanctuary is constructed, formerly stood the temple of the Mexican Ceres, called Tonantzin (our mother), or Cen-teoth (goddess of maize), or Tzin-teoll (generative goddess).