" Along one of the causeways that lead into the city, are laid two pipes, constructed of masonry, each of which is two feet in width and about five feet in height. An abundant supply of excellent water, forming a volume equal in bulk to the human body, is conveyed by one of the pipes, and distributed about the city, where it is used by the inhabitants for drinking, and other purposes. The other pipe, in the meantime, is kept empty until the former requires cleansing, when the water is conducted into it and it continues ;

to be used till the process of cleansing is completed.

* Bradford's Antiquities of America, p. 136, 1. t Bradford's Antiquities of America, pp. 106,7.

74 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. "As the water is necessarily carried over bridges, on account of the passage of the salt water, (of the lake) across the causeway, at different points, reservoirs resembling canals are constructed on the bridges through which the fresh water is conveyed these reser-;

voirs are of the breadth of the body of an ox, and of the same length of the bridges. Thus the whole city is supplied. The water is also carried in canoes through all the streets, for sale, being taken from'the aqueduct in the following manner the canoes pass ;

under the bridges, on which the reservoirs are placed, and men stationed above fill them with water, for which service they receive a suitable compensation."

We are indebted for this translation to Mr. Folsom, the Librarian of the New York Historical Society ; who is preparing for the press a complete English version of Cortes' Letters. " Chronicle of New Spain" was published Gomara, the Chaplain of Cortes, whose in 1552, states in addition to the above, that " the water was brought from a place called