FIND OF IMPORTANCE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 107, 8 May 1930, Page 15

FIND OF IMPORTANCE

AN ANCIENT CITY

Following an animal trail through thick jungle on a huge mesa in the Stato of Vera Oruz led Charles M. Dray ton, pilot of tho Mexican Aviation Company, and his companions, J. G. Philen, Jnr.j and P. O. Willy, of Brownsville, to the discovery of two pyramids about 80 feet high, says the "Christian Science Monitor."

The pyramids were six miles apart and connected with a broad highwayrunning straight across the mesa.

Near by-was the ruin of an edifice which might have been an ancient Aztee temple or one of the first junglo churches constructed by the conquerors. Its stato and the fact that the jungle had almost reclaimed it, as well as the pyramid^ and highway, kept the men from determining whether it was Aztee or Spanish.

The discoverers of the ruins believe they' are the first white men over to see them, inasmuch as none of the Indians "resident there had any knowledge,of them. The men stumbled upon the ruins by pure accident, as jungle growth hid- them even within a yard of the.base.^. - ; ...';.:.:;■«

They were chopping their way through the jungle "when" suddenly they camo to .a low-stone wall. ;Just ahead they saw what appeared tq be a small hill, but examination disclosed thai it was a pyramid of seven terraces, about 200 feet along the base, and 80 feet high. On top^ w/3re several sacrificial stones and a shaft which had been filled with debris.

. Leading from the pyramid they found a highway paved with cut stone which led for six miles across the mesa,- at the other ond of which • they found .another pyramid, almost identical.

On the open spaces of tho mesa, which is completely uninhabited, they discovered hundreds of burial mounds, some of which were 20 feet high. There were also innumerable wells, faced with stone and still serviceable.

The number of burial mounds and walls on the open surface of the mesa kept the men from landing their aeroplane on top of the table-land, and they had to set up camp six hours' distant by horseback.

The ruins are 125 miles south-weat of Tampico, about 80 miles from the gulf,' and only 100 miles in an aeroplane from Mexico City.

When the men tola Indians living on lower plateaus of their find, the Indians recalled a legend of how their predecessors had discovered an edifice on the plateau many years before and had uncovered a golden image which had been lost when a terrific tropical storm and nightfall preyed on their superstitions, causing, them to throw away the treasure. The legendary edifice had never, been discovered by the modern Indians. " ' . :

The story led the explorers to believe that perhaps more gold objects lie buried about the ruins or in the mounds. ■■ ■•;' :' ':• . '-■ ,;'

The men are planning an organised oxpedition^t6' the ruins within a feW months. •■■ ;

It costs about £215,400 a year to run the British Museum; the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, costs less than half this. ;