ater occupies the centre and contains a tecpatl, the symbol of the
north, the same associated with the fire-drill god in the next figure. In
fig. 1, 4, the central fountain is surrounded, as in many instances, by
stars which connect it with the nocturnal heaven, and it contains a
rabbit=tochtli, the rebus figure employed to express the word octli, by
which the rain was designated as "earth wine" (see pp. 95 and 185).

As I write, I have before me a whole series of painted representations
from the Codices of what has heretofore been misinterpreted as images of
the diurnal sun. In some of these the open centre is painted blue or
green, in others it is filled by a heart from which flows, in some cases,
a stream of blood, the essence of life. In several instances a tree with
four main branches grows from the centre.(148) In one case the tree grows
from a pool and holds in its branches the image of the axle, in the centre
of which, as in the Humboldt Tablet preserved at the Berlin Museum, a
figure is seated. The centres of others exhibit the head of a divinity
painted red, a single eye, or the ollin. All examples establish the fact
that the Mexican "axle of the North" represented fire and water emanating
from a single source. In notable examples, where the axle is carved in
stone, the identical features are conventionally reproduced. Some exhibit
a depression or deep hole in the centre. This is the case in the
remarkable example at the museum in New Haven, Conn., where the axle is
carved on the top of a square altar, the corners of which exhibit symbols
of the four elements, each accompanied by the numeral 4. The centre of the
figure exhibits a carved ollin, in the middle of which a deep hole is
situated. An analogous but shallow depression occurs in the great circular
monument, the Conquest Stone of Mexico (see p. 259), around which
Tezcatlipoca, the one-footed fire-drill god, is represented sixteen times,
each time in the act of receiving the enforced homage of the chief or
chieftainess of a different locality.

The above monuments, as well as a rudely-carved representation of the
"sun" recently discovered and unearthed by Dr. Ed. Seler, lying on a
substructure of stones in the centre of an open space, presumably a market
place, definitely proves that the design was intended to be placed in a
horizontal position. This intention has already been noted in the case of
the Great Cosmical Stone of Mexico (fig. 56), on which the