del Calendario o gran libro
astronomico.... Mexico. 1889.

70 Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III, 1, 60.

71 A somewhat disheartening consideration concerning the Stone of the
Great Plan deserves mention. The probability is that it was
originally painted with the colors of the four quarters and that
some of the records thus made are irretrievably lost. On taking the
first impressions with gelatine, in order to make his admirable cast
of the monolith, Senor Abadiano discovered many traces of color,
lodged in small crevices and corners of the carvings. Moreover, the
use of the symbolical colors on stone monuments is vouched for by
the great painted monolith which was, strange to say, re-interred
after having been discovered in the City of Mexico some years ago.
The reproduction of an obviously incorrect drawing made of this
stone during its uncovered state, has been published in vol. II of
the Annals of the National Museum of Mexico.

72 Relacion, p. 339, Kingsborough, vol. IX.

73 Leon y Gama advanced the opinion that the stone, supplemented by a
gnomon, served as a solar clock or dial, to mark the hours of the
days and the seasons, etc. He added that the stone may have served
further purposes than those he enumerated and hints that it may have
also recorded lunar periods. This distinguished scholar concludes by
acknowledging that the ancient Mexicans possessed enlightened
knowledge of the movements of the principal planets and methods of
observing them, in order to divide time for the purposes of civil
and religious government (Description de las dos Piedras. Mexico,
1852, p. 110).

The late Doctor Philip Valentini, in a learned discourse on the
Calendar-stone, read at New York in 1878, expressed his view that it
contained a complete and plastic representation of the division of
time employed in ancient Mexico.

The distinguished Mexican scholar, Senor Alfredo Chavero, has
published the most elaborate treatise which has been written on the
subject and discusses the views of Gama and Valentini with much
erudition. Referring the reader to his publications in the Annals of
the National Museum of Mexico I shall but mention his views that the
four symbols, contained in the quadruplicate central figure, record
four e