Peabody Museum.

It will be of interest to those who have visited the Central American room in the Peabody Museum to know that there is now in press a general report on the explorations carried on by the Museum at Copan in Honduras during the years 1891-95. This report will form the first number of the Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, a large quarto publication. It will contain a general account of the several explorations with descriptions of the prominent monoliths and sculptures and a number of illustrations. These illustrations, some of which are in the text, and others in the form of halftone reproductions from photographs, give a very clear idea of the ruins of this prehistoric city; and to most persons they will be a revelation of the remarkable architecture and sculpture of this ancient people of Central America. Several of the huge monoliths or idols, as they are generally called, with their respective altars, are shown in these illustrations, as are also a number of pieces of sculpture representing the ancient gods and priests.

The large map accompanying the Memoir gives a general view of the ruins showing the position of the pyramids upon which stand the temples and other buildings, portions of which are covered with sculptures. Extending to the top of one of these pyramids is a stairway about forty feet wide and one hundred feet high. The front of each step of this stairway is elaborately carved with hieroglyphs and here and there a human figure.

One of the photographs, showing the face of the structure where the river has washed away a portion of it, illustrates the great wall one hundred feet in height. In this wall there is evidence that the place has been occupied at successive periods and that one city has been built over the ruins of another. The explorations of the Museum have shown that many of the large mounds are really the ruins of temples built of care fully cut blocks of stone. In these temples are a number of chambers, several of which have been cleared in the process of exploration so that their structure is in part understood; but a great amount of work is still to be done before all the structures of this ancient city are known. The ruins extend for several miles along the Copan river and give evidence that this region once sustained a numerous population.

The report of the Museum explorations is compiled from the field notes of John G. Owens, Marshall H. Saville and George Byron Gordon, who at different times have been in charge of the explorations. In this first number the object is simply to give a general account of the ruins, the plan being to publish a series of memoirs on special topics relating to them.

The publication of this report will certainly arouse renewed interest in American archaeology, and it will in a measure serve as a handbook for those who wish to make a more careful study of the objects from Copan exhibited in the Museum. To those who have

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