people that a thorough drainage of the city would increase the danger from this source.
The foundations of a large proportion of the houses are laid either in water or in marshy flats; and I have often seen a loaded wagon, carriage, or cart perceptibly shake a two-story house. The School of Mines, a massive and immense structure, has sunk more than six feet in the earth within forty years, so I was informed by Professor Costillo, of that institution.
Mexico has been termed the Rome of America, not only because of its temples and palaces, but also on account of its churches and other ecclesiastical buildings; but many of the latter are alienated from their original use, while of the one hundred church buildings, only half this number are now devoted to religious services. The grand Gothic cathedral rises majestically above all surrounding objects, the most conspicuous feature in the architecture of the metropolis. It is built of unhewn stone, and is five hundred feet in length by four hundred and twenty in width. The walls are several feet in thickness. This great building was completed in 1667, nearly one hundred years after its foundation, at a cost of two million dollars. Its exterior is majestic and imposing, and the interior gorgeously painted and decorated, its altars enriched with gold, silver, and jewels.
But with all its grandeur the cathedral is anything but a choice place for devotional exercises. True democracy is the rule, and the most degraded, unclean lepero has as much space allotted to him as the grandest lady or gentleman. This is undoubtedly the true spirit and intent of Christianity, but one cannot help being a little fastidious. I have seen men most earnestly engaged in their devotions, with dozens of chickens, and as many turkeys as they could carry, suspended from their persons; women with burro loads of vegetables on their shoulders, others with one or two pappooses screaming and wiggling in their mothers' rebozos, all in such numbers as to forbid pious meditations.
Skirting the west side of the cathedral is a shady garden with fountains and seats, terminating in a most unique and choice flower market. At the corner, facing the Zócalo, there is a heap of curiously
