5-* Read before the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, at its twenty-fourth annual meeting, January 5th, 1882.

5-† Of the numerous authorities which could be quoted on this point, I shall give the words of but one, Father Alonso Ponce, the Pope’s Commissary-General, who travelled through Yucatan in 1586, when many natives were still living who had been born before the Conquest (1541). Father Ponce had travelled through Mexico, and, of course, had learned about the Aztec picture-writing, which he distinctly contrasts with the writing of the Mayas. Of the latter, he says: “Son alabados de tres cosas entre todos los demas de la Nueva España, la una de que en su antiguedad tenian caracteres y letras, con que escribian sus historias y las ceremonias y orden de los sacrificios de sus idolos y su calendario, en libros hechos de corteza de cierto arbol, los cuales eran unas tiras muy largas de quarta ó tercia en ancho, que se doblaban y recogian, y venia á queder á manera de un libro encuardenada en cuartilla, poco mas ó menos. Estas letras y caracteres no las entendian, sino los sacerdotes de los idolos, (que en aquella lengua se llaman ‘ahkines,’) y algun indio principal. Despues las entendieron y supieron léer algunos frailos nuestros y aun las escribien.”—(“Relacion Breve y Verdadera de Algunas Cosas de las Muchas que Sucedieron al Padre Fray Alonso Ponce, Comisario-General en las Provincias de la Nueva España,” page 392). I know no other author who makes the interesting statement that these characters were actually used by the missionaries to impart instruction to the natives; but I learn through Mr. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, that a manuscript written in this manner by one of the early padres has recently been discovered.

5-‡ “Se les quemamos todos,” he writes, “lo qual á maravilla sentian y les dava pena.”—“Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan,” page 316.

7-* “Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan,” page 160.

7-† “The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths of Central America.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. XIX., 1881. The terminal letter in both these words—“chilan,” “balam,”—may be either “n” or “m,” the change being one of dialect and local pronunciation. I have followed the older authorities in writing “Chilan Balam,” the modern preferring “Chilam Balam.” Señor Eligio Ancona, in his recently published “Historia de Yucatan,” (Vol. I., page 240, note, Merida, 1878,) offers the absurd suggestion that the name “balam” was given to the native soothsayers by