[VIII-39] Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 102-3; Id., Essai Pol., p. 274; Id., in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., p. 12. Humboldt's account translated by Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., pp. 39-40, says it is the forest that is called Tajin, that the ruin was discovered by hunters, and pronounces the plate in the Gaceta very faulty.
[VIII-40] Nebel, Viage Pintoresco. The drawing is geometric rather than in perspective, and the author's descriptive text in a few details fails to agree exactly with it. José M. Bausa gives a slight description in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. v., p. 411, without stating the source of his information. He locates the ruin 2½ leagues south-west of the pueblo. This author states that Carlos M. Bustamante published a good account of the ruin in 1828, in his Revoltijo de Nopalitos. Other accounts of Papantla made up from the preceding sources, are as follows:—Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., pp. 196-7, with cut after Nebel; Id., Mex. as it Was, pp. 248-9; Id., in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. vi., p. 583, pl. xi.; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 91-2; Conder's Mex. Guat., tom. i., p. 227; Fossey, Mex., pp. 317-18; Hassel, Mex. Guat., pp. 238-9; Larenaudière, Mex. Guat., p. 45; De Bercy, Travels, tom. ii., p. 237; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 79-80; Mühlenpfordt, Mejico, tom. ii., p. 88; Mexicanische Zustände, p. 142; Bingley's Trav., pp. 259-60; Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 256; Armin, Heutige Mex., pp. 96-7, with cut; Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géog., tom. vi., p. 462; Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 459; Priest's Amer. Antiq., pp. 276-8; Wappäus, Geog. u. Stat., p. 154; Wilson's Mex. and its Religion, pp. 246-7.
[VIII-41] The dimensions in Nebel's text are, 120 feet square and 85 feet high, which must be an error, since the author says that the stairway in the plate may be used as a scale, each step being a foot; and measuring the structure by that scale it would be something over 90 feet square at the base and about 54 feet high. The Gaceta says that the base is 30 varas (83 English feet) square, and the steps in sight were 57 in number. Humboldt calls the pyramid 25 mètres (82 feet) square and 18 mètres (59 feet) high, or, in Essai Pol., 16 to 20 mètres. Bausa, Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. v., p. 411, calls the height 93 feet, with 53 steps.
[VIII-42] Bausa says the pyramid faces the north. The Gaceta account represents the stairway as 10 or 12 varas wide. The plate represents the lateral narrow stairways as single instead of double, and the niches as not extending entirely across the wide central stairway. Only six stories are shown in the plate, terminating in a summit platform on which stand two small altar-like structures at the head of the lateral stairways. Nebel speaks simply of a 'double stairway.' Humboldt agrees with the plate in the Gaceta.
[VIII-43] The Gaceta's text says 342, but its own figures correctly added make the number 378 as is pointed out by Marquez; and the plate accompanying the same account makes the number 309. Fossey says 360 niches. Humboldt made the number 378, which he supposed to relate to the signs of the Toltec civil calendar.
[VIII-44] Nebel, Viage Pintoresco; Cassel, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1830, tom. xlv., pp. 336-7; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., p. 198; Id., Mex. as it Was, pp. 246-7.
[VIII-45] Nebel, Viage Pintoresco; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., pp. 199-200; Id., Mex. as it Was, pp. 247-8; Armin, Alte Mex., p. 43; Bausa, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. v., pp. 411-12, locates Tusapan 14 leagues south-west of Papantla.
[VIII-46] The original of this report I have not seen; a translation, however, was published in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, of Feb. 20, 1866.
[VIII-47] Mex., Mem. del Ministro del Fomento, 1865, p. 234, etc. It was also published in a separate pamphlet. Almaraz, Mem. acerca de los Terrenos de Metlaltoyuca, pp. 28-33. Mention by García y Cubas, a companion of Almaraz, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., p. 37.
[VIII-48] Chimalpopoca, in Almaraz, Mem., p. 28; Linares, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 3ra época, tom. i., p. 103.