A RUINED CITY IN TEXAS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2581, 26 January 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

A RUINED CITY IN TEXAS.

The surveys at. present being in ado for the Kansas City, J£l Paso and Mexican Railroad, at a point north latitude 33 degrees and west longitude 100 degrees, hive passed along the lava flow whieli by the 11>cr'! population is called t.liu Molpais, It consists of a sea of molten black glass, agitated at the moment of cooling in rugged waves of fantastic shape?. These lava waves and ridges are from ten to twelve feet high, with combinc crests. This lava flow is about 40 miles long from north-east to south-west, and from one to ten miles wide. For miles on all sides tho country is the most desolate that can he imagined. It has been literally burnt up. It consists of fine white ashes to any depth which, so far, has been dug down. To the north of the lava flow, and lying in a country equally desolate and arid, the surveyors have come upon the ruins of Gran Guivera, known already to tho early Spanish explorers, Imt which have been visited by white men less often than tho mysterious ruins of Palenque, in Central America. Only a few people at Socorro and White Oaks have been at Gran Guivera, because it is at present forty miles from water. The surveyors found the ruins to be of gigantic stone buildings made in the most substantial manner and of grand proportions, One of these was four aores in extent. All indications around the ruins point to the existence here at one time of a dense population. No legend of any kind exists aa to how this great eity was destroyed, or when it was abandoned. One of the engineers attached to tlu surveying expedition advances the theorj that Gran Guivera was in existence ant abundantly supplied with water at tin time the terrific volcanic eruption toolplace.—Scientific American.