sions
and classes, during a fixed period of time. Both seem to commemorate the
"renovation" or "new growth" of the tribal tree in a mode which would have
been as intelligible to a Mexican, for instance, as to a Maya. The fact
that the "Temple of the Sun" and that of the "Inscriptions" obviously held
analogous registers, points to the alternative possibilities (1) that each
temple was destined to preserve the register of the population and social
organization, etc., of one of the four quarters of the capital and state,
according to years; (2) that the trees in the "Cross temples" figured the
male and female lineages of the ruling caste, whilst the tablet in the
"Temple of the Sun" recorded the numbers of conquered people reduced to
slavery and the "Temple of Inscriptions" preserved the register of female
children or of vassals; (3) that each of the four temples preserved a
complete register of the entire state and had been erected consecutively
at the conclusion or beginning of eras, the difference observable in the
central motif conveying the salient feature or event marking each special
epoch and recording, according to years, the organization of the state
during its course.

In the face of this possibility as well as the probability that each glyph
was painted and implied a year, it is interesting to note that, including
the initial glyph, the "Tablet of the Cross" exhibits 108 glyphs on the
side to the left and 124 on the side to the right of the spectator=a total
of 232; the "Tablet of the Cross II" exhibits 76 to the left and 83 to the
right=159; and that in the "Temple of the Sun," 70 to the left, 159 to the
right and 12 in the middle=241. The "Temple of Inscriptions" exhibits the
initial series (see Maudslay, Biologia, pt. X, pl. 82) and entire walls
covered with glyphs, some of which, as on the tablets enumerated above,
are accompanied by numerals whilst others are not.

In a future publication I shall submit illustrations of these monuments
with the ripened results of my investigations concerning them. For my
present purpose it suffices to have produced substantial proofs that the
ancient dwellers in Palenque employed the same metaphors, the same cursive
method of registration and held the same fundamental principles of
organization that have been shown to underlie the civilizations of Peru,
Guatemala, Yucatan, and Mexico and still survive amongst the Zunis and
more northern tribes. It is obvious that, at Palen