Show Mexico City Is Losing Altitude Cortez Built Capital On Underground Lake LakeY BY YEAR Mexico City Is Y YEAR losing altitude Standing high and cool in a great mountain rimmed b bas basin a s I in n where Aztec priests once sacrificed human victims to the gods of war this modern ancient-modern city of at palaces and turbulent memories is slowly sInking into an underground lake bed Thousands of at artesian wells pierce the tl thin n crust of ot solid earth on which the Mexican capital floats Beneath is a slippery mush of volcanic ash and water As the water is pumped up the soft surface surface surface sur sur- sur- sur face earth goes down Thus say engineers are Mexicans drinking up their own own foundations While the city it dropped 14 inches in the last eight months some heavy buildings settle even faster The massive Palace of Fine Arts has sagged some 15 feet below its original level Yet other structures structures structures tures seem to grow taller Set on deep pilings they hold their level while surroundings sag The capital now faces a plumbing crisis Unless emergency measures are taken soon warned the municipal municipal municipal pal engineer recently the main drainage system will reverse its flow low This was golden capital of at the Aztec Empire its temples and castles rising on divided canal islands and linked to the mainland by three masonry causeways Cortez conquered and r razed a z zed e d From its remains he built a new city imperial seat of ot New Spain Near a temple found lined with more than skulls he erected a church from the stones of at the Aztec shrines And as Mexico City pushed outward in the centuries that followed it grew on filled land covering the lake and converting it into a subterranean pool of ot lava clay |