ii, pp.

358-372.] [Footnote 2: The whole of this version of the myth is from the work of Ramirez de Fuen-leal, which I consider in some respects the most valuable authority we possess.

It was taken directly from the sacred books of the Aztecs, as explained by the most competent survivors of the Conquest.] The myth which I have here given in brief is a prominent one in Aztec cosmogony, and is known as that of the Ages of the World or the Suns.

The opinion was widely accepted that the present is the fifth age or period of the world's history; that it has already undergone four destructions by various causes, and that the present period is also to terminate in another such catastrophe.

The agents of such universal ruin have been a great flood, a world-wide conflagration, frightful tornadoes and famine, earthquakes and wild beasts, and hence the Ages, Suns or Periods were called respectively, from their terminations, those of Water, Fire, Air and Earth.