obscure and the curious as represented in the history of his native land. He is the authority upon its more recondite history, those small but toothsome rarities of long-forgotten fact which so tickle the palate of the real antiquary. Of such, his "Old Mexico" is a never-failing mine. It has established a reputation beyond the confines of Mexico and has been republished in Paris. No less valuable in its own way is his Novelistas Mexicanos en el Siglo XIX (Mexican Novelists in the Nineteenth Century), in which he has outlined the character of the Mexican novel and attempted to give each fictioneer his place in the national literature. His biographical essays upon Lizardi, a Mexican writer of the early nineteenth century, and Jose Fernando Ramirez are highly appreciated and valued in literary circles in the Republic. Senor Obregon's health has never been strong, but his habits, always those of a valetudenarian, have by no means interfered with his literary labours.
Foremost among Mexican writers on ancient Mexican history was the late Alfredo Chavero, whose knowledge of the affairs of his native land in prehistoric times was rivalled by none, Mexican or European.Chavero
and the
"Antiguedades." Especially was he erudite in the subject of the ancient picture-writings; and the explanatory text of a great work, Antigüedades Mexicanos, published by the commission delegated to fitly celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, is from his pen. He also edited the Historia Chichimeca and Relaciones of Ixtlilxochitl, a native chronicler, illuminating the text with valuable annotations and making many dark places light. The first volume of Mexico a traves de los Siglos (Mexico Through the Centuries), a vast work in five volumes, each dealing with a distinct epoch in Mexican history and written by an expert, is his, and treats pre-historic Mexico in masterly fashion. He paid close attention to the very important question of the ancient Mexican calendar—the rock on which many archaeologists are wrecked,
