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AN INQUIRY 
 
 INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE 
 
 ANTIQUITIES OF AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN DELAFIELD, JR. 
 
 WITH 
 
 AN APPENDIX, 
 
 CONTAINING NOTES, AND " A VIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE SUPERIORITY OF THE MEN 
 OF THE NORTHERN OVER THOSE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE." 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES LAKEY, M.D. 
 
 NEW. YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR SUBSCRIBERS, BY 
 
 J. C. COLT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN. 
 
 PARIS: 
 A. & W. GALIGNANI & CO. 
 
 1839. 
 
Entered according to act of Congress, in .the year 1839, by 
 John Delafield Jr. 
 in the District Clerk's Office of the District Court of Ohio. 
 
oial 
 
 t* 
 
 TO 
 
 THE HON. JACOB BUKNET, L. L. D 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT. REV CHAS. P. McILVAINE, D. D. 
 
 BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OP OHIO. 
 
 What a wonderful book is the Bible ! But what connection has the Bible with 
 American Antiquities ? Because of all Antiquities, it is the most valuable and 
 marvellous specimen ; because with all antiquities it is associated in the most 
 important and interesting relations ; because the most valuable discoveries in antiquity 
 must appeal to the Bible for interpretation; and the registers of long lost events and 
 generations, inscribed upon the rocks and buried in the fossil remains of far distant ages, 
 or scattered far and wide in the ruins of once mighty empires, are so many witnesses, 
 constantly multiplying, to the history contained in the Bible. 
 
 As a specimen of antiquity, what is comparable in point of interest with this Book? 
 Suppose that in searching the tumuli that are scattered so widely over this country, 
 the silent, aged, mysterious remembrancers of some populous race, once carrying on all 
 the business of life where now are only the wild forests of many centuries, a race 
 of whom we ask so often, who they were, whence they came, whither they went ; 
 suppose that under one of those huge structures of earth which remain of their works, 
 a book were discovered, an alphabetic history of that race for a thousand years, 
 containing their written language, and examples of their poetry and other* literature, and 
 all undeniably composed many hundreds of years before any of the nations now possessing 
 this continent were here ! What a wonder would this be ! What intense interest would 
 attach to such a relic ! What price would not the learned be willing to give for it ! 
 What fragments of Egyptian inscriptions ; what unintelligible characters among the ruins 
 of Belus ; what remains from the bowels of the earth, telling of some ancient convulsion 
 of its rocks, could be compared in value to such a specimen of the mind, the language, 
 the literature, such a detailed history of the deeds of a nation otherwise unheard of? 
 But much more than this is the Bible. It contains histories, specimens of literature, 
 examples of poetry and eloquence, unquestionably written, some eight hundred years before 
 the writing of the oldest book of any description which the literature of the world has 
 preserved. Greece was a land of barbarians for many centuries after Moses composed 
 his history of the world and of Israel. There is no evidence that alphabetic writing 
 was known when he wrote, except among the nation over which he ruled. 
 
 But then, what should we know of the history of the world, and its nations, for 
 three thousand years, if all that has been derived exclusively from the Bible, were 
 obliterated from all memories and all books? Where should we go for knowledge of that 
 
 B 
 
C PREFACE. 
 
 immense extent of time — one half of the age of the world? To the most ancient 
 nations, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Phcnicians ? Alas, it is all wilderness 
 there; a few fragments of pretended annals, which, like the gloomy remains upon the 
 plains of Shinar, can neither he referred to the right place in chronology, nor interpreted 
 so as to give them their right estimate in point of truth; mere continuation of the 
 confusion of tongues at Babel. Do we inquire of Egyptian literature for an ancient 
 book containing authentic details of far ancient times? We are referred only to Manetho. 
 But he wrote so late as the third century before Christ. All his professed authority was 
 certain sacred inscriptions on pillars, which probably never existed. And nothing is 
 extant, of even such history, but a few inconsiderable fragments. We enquire next of 
 Babylonian literature; and arc told only of Berosus, a Priest of Belus. When did he write? 
 No one knows, except that it was somewhere in the period of the Macedonian dynasties. 
 What remains of his writing? A few fragments preserved by Josephus, Eusebius and 
 Tatian; of value indeed, because confirming the history in the Bible, but almost 
 useless, without that history. We inquire next of Phcnician history and arc referred 
 only to the work of Sanchoniathon, famous for having been used by Porphyry, (the shrewdest 
 antagonist Christianity ever had) in opposition to the writings of Moses. What remains 
 of it now? One book only, and that upon the Phenician theology, and of course 
 full of fable; and as a history, unaided by any better, useless. But does Greece, 
 ancient, classic, learned Greece furnish nothing more valuable concerning the first three 
 thousand years of the world? Alas, of Greek historians, the antiquity of the oldest, whose 
 names have been preserved, does not much exceed the times of Cyrus and Cambyses. 
 Of many of these, we have only their names; no knowledge even of their subject. 
 Of the remainder, nothing extant is older than the Persian war. And of that 
 nothing is to be depended on, connected with times prior to the Pcloponesian war. 
 Thucydides asserts, and proves this. " The mailer preceding that time, (about four hundred 
 and four years, B. C.) cannot now, through the length of time, be accurately discovered 
 hi/ us.'' Plutarch, in writing of the earlier periods, has to "implore the candor of his 
 readers, and their kind allowance for the talcs of antiquity." "As geographers thrust 
 into the extremities of their maps, those countries that are unknown to them, remarking, 
 at the same time, that all beyond is hills of sand, and haunts of wild beasts, frozen seas, 
 marshes, and mountains that are inaccessible to human courage, or industry; so, in com- 
 paring the lives of illustrious men, when I have passed through those periods of time which 
 may bo described with probability, and where history may find firm footing in facts, I 
 may say of the remoter ages that all beyond is full of prodigy and fiction, the regions 
 of poets, and fabulists, wrapt in clouds, and unworthy of belief." 
 
 So said that learned Boeotian, who knew not the Scriptures. So appeared to him the 
 history of more than three thousand years of the world. Such also would it be to us, 
 were we destitute of the Bible. Just as we now wander ' among the mysterious remains of 
 the race which once possessed all this land, and pausing beneath some lofty mound, crested 
 with sturdy oaks, which have stood for centuries and are now nourished with the decayed 
 materials of a former generation; or, measuring the exact angles and regular outlines 
 of some vast system of warlike defence, for which the traditions of no race now known 
 among us have the least explanation, arc deeply impressed with the evidence that we are 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 constantly walking over the graves of an immense population, and pained with a 
 sense of utter darkness, as to every thing connected with them, except that they 
 bequeathed to posterity those existing and confounding traces of their existence; so precisely 
 should we be situated, with regard to all the human race, and all the mightiest changes in 
 the surface of the globe, were we, as Plutarch was, destitute of all that history for which 
 we are exclusively indebted to the Old Testament Scriptures. We should have the 
 tumuli which, from the days of Homer to the present, have been seen on the plains 
 of Troy; the frightful heaps of desolation on the foundations of Babel; the ruined tombs, 
 temples and pyramids of ancient Egypt, sculptured with characters, which curiosity has 
 decyphered, only to be disappointed; the gigantic remains of distant antiquity in India, as 
 silent and gloomy as the quarried temple of Elephanta; to such as these the geologists might 
 add their theories of mighty convulsions in nature, and immense periods of time; and in 
 the midst of all, the several traditions of the nations might be heard speaking with 
 a confusion of tongues which would do credit to an ancient emigration from Babel, each 
 needing an interpreter nearly as much as the secrets it pretends to unveil; so that were 
 we to attempt from such sources, an account of the progress of the human family 
 during the vast period we have mentioned, what better could we do, than imitate the 
 geographer, and write terra incognita over the whole. The curious hieroglyphic map 
 connected with this work, intended doubtless for a history of a numerous people, great 
 movements, long periods, divers changes, wars, afflictions, successes; intended, moreover, to 
 teach something of the geography, natural history, and vegetable productions, of the countries 
 in which they occured, but so curiously blind, may be taken as no inappropriate illustration of the 
 plainest traces we could discover under such circumstances, of all that .transpired from 
 the creation of man, through more than thirty centuries of his posterity. Yes, the whole 
 reason of the wide difference, between our present chart of the history of man, during 
 all that period, and the chart contained in this volume, is founded in the knowledge 
 for which we are indebted alone to the Bible. 
 
 But exceedingly insignificant as are all resources for the earliest history of the world 
 independantly of the Bible, they may be of great consequence in connection with the 
 Bible. They may add no facts to what it contains; but they may contradict or confirm 
 what it contains. A single line of inscription upon a Theban tomb; a bone dug up from 
 the depths of the earth; a stratum of rock, or rubbish, discovered in the interior of a 
 mountain, may add very little to our knowledge of facts, illustrating the history of the 
 globe; but it will become of great importance, if it conflict, or harmonize, with any statements 
 which Moses, professing to write under divine inspiration has recorded. One discovery 
 of the Antiquarian, or the geologist, perfectly authenticated, accurately interpreted, certainly 
 speaking the truth, and certainly contradictory to the Mosaic record; what an evidence against 
 his inspiration! Then how singularly has the Bible exposed itself to attack; what an immense 
 frontier has it had to defend; what a chain of posts in the wilderness to protect. Relating 
 minutely the most important events, from the creation of the world, for several thousand 
 years; events, such as tradition, and inscriptions, and monuments, and strata of the earth, 
 if they speak of any thing, can hardly avoid recording, in some shape or other; thus, 
 coming into contact with all the researches of literature and science at innumerable points, 
 and inviting investigation; challenging attack along the whole line of its details; what book 
 
fci PREFACE. 
 
 in such circumstances, and from so distant an age, could stand such a trial, were it not 
 inspired? It would be wonderful, could we only say that every search into tradition; 
 every interpretation of inscriptions; every trace of nations; every remnant of ancient history; 
 every developemenl of the geology of the earth, has failed to contradict the history in the 
 Bible. We go ranch farther. It has continually been adding new confirmations to that 
 history. Assaults have often been made; fears excited; pCBans sung; hut when the smoke of the 
 artillery had blown oil", troth has always appeared, as ever, resting h< r right hand upon 
 the Bible; so that HOW alter a trial of more than three thousand years since the first 
 hook of Scripture was written, the people of God may exclaim in triumph: '"Walk 
 ahout Zion — tell the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks j — God will eslahlish it 
 forever. " 
 
 Hume asserted that the Books of Moses are "corroborated hi/ no concurring 
 testimony." Dr. Campbell answered: "As little is it invalidated by any confrat/icfing 
 testimony: and both for this plain reason, hecause there is no human composition that 
 can he compared with this, in respect of antiquity." But arc the hooks of Moses 
 without collateral evidence? Thales measured the height of the pyramids, by the length 
 of their shadows. What if we measure the truth of the facts, narrated by Moses, by 
 the number and variety of the traditions, among all nations, concerning them? Traditions 
 have been distinctly traced, in opposite regions of the glohe, and in the most 
 unconnected nations of the creation, of the production of all living creatures out 
 of water by the power of one Supreme mind; the formation of man, last, in the 
 image of God, and his being invested with dominion over all other animals; the 
 primitive state of innocence and happiness; Paradise; the Sabbath; the division of 
 time into weeks; the fall of man; (the mother of mankind is represented in American 
 tradition as fallen and accompanied by a serpent); the promise of a deliverer; Cain 
 and Abel: the general degeneracy of mankind; the longevity of the Patriarchs; the 
 general deluge; the escape of only a single family in an ark; the dove sent out by Noah; 
 the rainbow as a sign: the number of persons in the ark; the Tower of Babel; the destruction 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah — these with divers circumstances and details illustrating the main 
 particulars. So remarkable were the traditions of several of these facts, among the inhabitants 
 of America, at the time of the Spanish conquest, that the priests who accompanied the 
 army, were induced to suppose that Christianity, or at least Judaism, had been inculcated 
 among them at some very distant period. Humboldt, however, sees no need of such 
 explanation "since similar traditions, (ho says) of high and venerable antiquity, are 
 found among the followers of Brama, and among the Shamans of the eastern steppes of 
 Tartary." 
 
 The traditions of the deluge arc particularly numerous. Thty are derived from the oldest 
 nations of antiquity — the Chaldeans. Egyptians, Greeks (and mentioned by Berosus, Hcsiod, 
 Plato, Plutarch, Lucian, &c.) as well as from people the most recently discovered ; as the 
 natives of North and South America and of the islands of the South sea. The Antipodes of 
 the earth unite in testimony to the deluge. Chinese and Sanscrit literature concurs with Chilian 
 and Peruvian and Mexican tradition in hearing witness to that catastrophe. Among the natives 
 of America it is commemorated by a fable similar to that of Pyrrha and Deucalion. "These 
 ancient traditions of the human race (says Humboldt) which we find dispersed over the surface 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 of the globe, like the fragments of a vast shipwreck, are of the greatest interest in the 
 philosophical study of our species. Like certain families of plants, which notwithstanding the 
 diversity of climates and the influence of heights, retain the impress of a common type, the 
 traditions respecting the primitive state of the globe present among all nations a resemblance 
 that fills us with astonishment; so many different languages belonging to branches which appear 
 to have no connection with each other, transmit the same facts to us. The substance of the 
 traditions respecting the destroyed races, and the renovation of nature, is every where almost 
 the same; although each nation gives it a local coloring. In the great continents, as well as 
 in the smallest islands of the Pacific Ocean, it is always on the highest and nearest mountain, 
 that the remains of the human race were saved ; and this event appears so much the more 
 recent, the more uncultivated the nations are, and the shorter the period since they began to 
 acquire a knowledge of themselves. When we attentively examine the Mexican monuments, 
 anterior to the discovery of America; penetrate into the forests of the Orinoco, and become 
 aware of the smallness of the European establishments, their solitude and the state of the tribes 
 which retain their independence; we cannot allow ourselves to attribute the agreement of those 
 accounts to the influence of missionaries and to that of Christianity upon national traditions." 
 
 Singular, also, is the concurrence of tradition as to the era of the deluge. Cuvier remarks 
 that the famous astronomical tables of the Hindoos, from which such distant antiquity has 
 been inferred, were calculated backwards. Speaking of the agreement as to the period of the 
 renewal of mankind, he says: "It is not to be conceived that mere chance should have given rise 
 to so striking a coincidence between the traditions of the Assyrians, the Hindoos and the Chinese, 
 in attributing the origins of their respective monarchies so nearly to the same epoch, of about 
 four thousand years before the present day. The ideas of these three nations, which are so entirely 
 dissimilar in language, religion and laws, could not have so exactly agreed on this point, unless 
 it had been founded on truth." Again, the same writer: "All nations which possess any 
 records of any ancient traditions, declare that they have been recently renewed after a grand 
 revolution in nature. This concurrence of historical and traditionary testimonies respecting a 
 comparatively recent renewal of the human race, and their agreement with the proofs that are 
 furnished by the operations of nature, might certainly warrant us in refraining from the 
 examination of certain equivocal monuments which have been brought forward by some authors 
 in support of a contrary opinion. But even this examination, to judge of it by some attempts 
 already made, will probably do nothing else than add some more proofs to that which is 
 furnished by tradition." 
 
 Baron Cuvier discovers testimony confirming the Mosaic era of the deluge, in the researches 
 of geology. The following is taken from a report of a course of lectures of that distinguished 
 naturalist in the Edinburgh New Philo. Journal for January, 1830. "While the traditions of 
 all nations have preserved the remembrance of a great catastrophe, the deluge, which changed 
 the earth's surface, and destroyed nearly the whole of the human species, geology apprizes us, 
 that of the various revolutions which have agitated our globe, the last evidently corresponds to 
 the period which is assigned to the deluge. 
 
 "We say, that by means of geological considerations alone, it is possible to determine the 
 date of this great event with some degree of precision. 
 
 " There are certain formations which must have commenced immediately after the last 
 
 catastrophe, and which from that period have been continued up to the present day with great 
 
 regularity. Such are the deposits of detritus, observed at the mouths of rivers, the masses of 
 
 rubbish which exist at the foot of mountains, and are formed of the fragments that fall from 
 
 C 
 
10 PREFACE. 
 
 the summits and sides. These deposits receive a yearly increase, which it is possible to 
 measure. Nothing, therefore, is more easy than to calculate the time which it has taken them 
 to acquire their present dimensions. This calculation has been made with reference to the 
 debris of mountains; and in all cases has indicated a period of about four thousand years. 
 The same result has been obtained from the other alluvial deposits. In short, whatever 
 may have been the natural phenomenon that has been interrogated, it has always been 
 found to give evidence in accordance with that of tradition. The traditions themselves exhibit 
 the most astonishing conformity. The Hebrew text of Genesis places the deluge in the 
 year 2319 before Christ. The Indians make the fourth age of the world, that in which 
 we now live, commence in the year 3012. The Chinese place it about the year 2381. 
 Confucius in fact, represents the first King Yeo, as occupied in drawing off the waters 
 of the ocean, which had risen to the tops of the mountains, and in repairing the damage 
 which they had caused." 
 
 The age of the world is another topic on which ingenious and diligent efforts have been 
 made with a view of discrediting the Mosaic writings. In vain, however, have the bowels of 
 the earth and all the discoveries of modern science been ransacked, for the purpose of fastening 
 a single mistake upon the Jewish Legislator. " If more time be required to account for 
 appearances in the interior of the globe than the six thousand years, since the formation of 
 man, more time may be taken, yea as much as can possibly be required by the most 
 covetous advocate of demiurgic ages, without the least contradiction to the Mosaic narrative 
 of the creation." We would adopt the statement, which has been increasingly adopted and 
 supported by our divines, that the two first verses of the book of Genesis have no 
 immediate connection with those that follow. They describe the first creation of matter; 
 but so far as any thing to the contrary is stated, a million of ages may have elapsed between 
 this first creation, and God's saying "Let there be light," and proceeding to mould matter 
 into a dwelling place for man. You cannot show that the third verse is necessarily 
 consecutive on the two first, so that what is recorded in the one may not be separated, by a 
 long interval, from what is recorded in the others. On the contrary, it is clear that the 
 interval may be wholly indefinite, quite as long as geology can possibly ask for all those mighty 
 transformations, those ponderous successions, of which it affirms that it can produce indubitable 
 evidence. Creation was the act of bringing out of nothing the matter of which all things were 
 constructed ; and this was done before .the six days: afterwards, and during the six days, God 
 made the heaven and the earth ; He moulded, that is, formed into different bodies the 
 matter which he had long ago created. We seem, therefore, warranted in saying that 
 with the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis, commences the account of the production 
 of the present order and system of things; and that to this Moses confines himself, describing 
 the earth as made ready for man, without stopping to speak of its previous conditions. But 
 since he does not associate the first creation of matter with this preparation of the globe 
 for its rational inhabitants, he in no degree opposes the supposition that the globe existed 
 immeasurably before man, and underwent a long series of revolutions. 
 
 M For our own part, we have no fear that any discoveries of science will really 
 militate against the disclosures of the Scriptures. We remember how in darker days, 
 ecclesiastics set themselves against philosophers, who were investigating the motions of the 
 heavenly bodies, apprehensive that the new theories were at variance with the Bible, and 
 therefore resolved to denounce them as heresies, and stop their spread by persecution. 
 
PREFACE. 11 
 
 But truth triumphed; bigotry and ignorance could not long prevail to the hiding from the 
 world the harmonious walkings of stars and planets; and ever since, the phdosophy which 
 laid open the wonders of the universe, hath proved herself the handmaid of the revelation 
 which divulged secrets far beyond her gaze. And thus we are persuaded shall it always 
 be; science may scale new heights, and explore new depths; but she shall bring back nothing 
 from her daring and successful excursions, which will not, when rightly understood, yield a 
 fresh tribute of testimony to the Bible. Infidelity may watch her progress with eagerness, 
 exulting in the thought that she is furnishing facts with which the christian system may be 
 strongly assailed; but the champions of revelation may confidently attend her in every march, 
 assured that she will find nothing which contradicts, if it do not actually confirm, the word 
 which they know to be divine. " * 
 
 In these sentiments, we entirely concur. Times will doubtless come, again and again, 
 when, in consequence of imperfect investigations, hasty theories and rash conclusions, the calm 
 surface of a settled belief in the unvaried accuracy of the inspired record, as to matters of 
 fact, connected with science or the original circumstances of mankind, may in some minds, 
 be troubled, and the progress of religion, founded upon such belief, be threatened with storm 
 and wreck; but the Lord is in the ship, and in his time will rebuke the winds and waves, 
 and the little faith of his people, and the light of truth shall shine out, as when " the Lord 
 looked unto the host of the Egyptians, through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and 
 troubled their host, and took off their chariot wheels." The Bible asks nothing but matured, 
 accurate investigations of all departments of knowledge connected with its statements, whether 
 in the traditions of nations, the phenomena of the elements, or the registers of geology. 
 
 The Antiquities of America are an immense field for inquiry, hardly entered; abounding 
 in promise of reward for the most devoted investigations. Let it be thoroughly explored 
 for the truth's sake. The Scriptures have yet to gather a richer cabinet of illustrative and 
 corroborating collections from the long buried and unknown depositories of American 
 Antiquity. 
 
 In reference to the question, whether all the races of men have descended from one 
 common stock, the Antiquities of this continent are specially interesting, and may prove of 
 very great value. It is a question, indeed, forever settled by the researches of Bryant, 
 Faber and Sir William Jones : " The dark Negro, the white European, and the swarthy 
 Asiatic, being plainly traced to their respective ancestors in the family of Noah." But much 
 confirmatory testimony may yet be obtained. The contingent of America to the host of 
 evidence already in array is yet to take its entire place in the line. If the present volume 
 shall only increase the ardor of investigation and the number of minds turning their energies 
 upon the disinterment of the buried antiquarian treasures of this continent, it will do a good 
 work and deserve the thanks of all lovers of truth. 
 
 *Melvill's Sermons. 
 
 C. P. M. 
 
 Kenyon College, Ohio. 
 February 1839. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following pages arc the result of a general course of reading, induced by 
 several year's residence amongst the interesting tumuli and mural antiquities of this 
 country. Whenever evidence is cited from any author, as will be noticed, the writer 
 has preferred to quote the very words, giving the requisite credit. It is trusted, the 
 mass of testimony will be deemed conclusive by the reader. 
 
AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ANTIQUITIES OF AMERICA. 
 
 We see, in every direction around us, the remains of an unknown race of men. 
 Throughout our country are tumuli, regularly constructed castra, embankments, and fossa. 
 In many of these tumuli, curious articles and relics have been discovered, which have been 
 buried with their possessors. Our object will be, in the first place, to trace, if possible, 
 the descendants of the people which may have built these remains; for we have no reason 
 to believe the race has become extinct. No evidence has at any time been adduced to prove 
 it, nor is it probable. 
 
 The extreme western limit of these vestiges of antiquity is not known. It is believed, 
 and conceded, that they are found as far north as the buffalo has been known to range. 
 Thence they extend through Western North America, and the Isthmus of Darien, to Peru. 
 Every where they differ in construction, apparently to suit the nature of the ground. In 
 North America they are principally built of earth. On approaching the elevated plains of 
 the Cordilleras, we find the same remains, but serving merely as bases on which are 
 erected massive stone edifices, now in ruins. 
 
 Given probably to agriculture, our fertile prairies attracted the undivided attention of this 
 
 people, save that which was necessary for protection from the mammoth, or from the hostile 
 
 D 
 
14 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 attacks of another race, and which resulted in tho construction of the earthen ramparts now 
 remaining. But on proceeding southwardly, where they were probably no more molested by 
 hostile invasion, their wonted industry found a new object for its exertion, in the erection of 
 extensive cities of stone. This change of custom may also be easily accounted for in the 
 beautiful language of a learned author, who says, " that the faculties unfold themselves with 
 more facility wherever man, chained to a barren soil, compelled to struggle with the parsimony 
 of nature, rises victorious from the lengthened contest." 
 
 Deserting the fertile prairies of this land, and encountering the more sterile plains of the 
 volcanic mountains of Mexico and Peru, their energy directed its impulse to more lasting 
 monuments of their existence as a people. 
 
 Tho earliest notice we have of the primitive occupants of our soil is as follows: 
 " The Lenni Lcnape, according to the traditions handed down to them by their ancestors, 
 resided many hundred years ago in a very distant country in the western part of the American 
 continent. They determined on migrating to the eastward, and accordingly set out in a body. 
 After a long journey, and many nights' encampment, (that is, halts of one year at a place,) 
 they arrived on the Namcesi Sipu* (Mississippi,) where they fell in with the Mengwe, (the 
 Iroquois, or Five Nations,) who had also emigrated from a distant country, and had struck 
 upon this river somewhat higher up. Their object was somewhat similar to that of the 
 Delawarcs; they were proceeding eastward, until they should find a country that pleased 
 them. The territory east of the 3Iississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation, who 
 had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. These were the 
 Alligewi, from whose name those of the Alleghany river f and mountains have been derived. 
 This famous people are said to have been remarkably tall and stout; and there is one tradition 
 that giants were among them — people of a much larger size than the Lenape. They built 
 regular fortifications and entrenchments, whence they would sally, but they were generally 
 repulsed. Mr. Heckewelder has seen many of these fortifications, two of which are remarkable, 
 viz: one near the mouth of the Huron flowing into Lake St. Clair; the other on the Huron 
 east of Sandusky, six or eight miles from Lake Erie. 
 
 * River of fish; namoes, a fish; sipu, a river. 
 
 t Viz: the Ohio, as the Iroquois named it; or La Belle Riviere (the Beautiful River) by the French; a branch of it 
 retain' its ancient name. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 15 
 
 "The Lenape, on their arrival, requested permission to settle in their country. The 
 Alligewi refused, but gave them leave to pass through and seek a settlement farther eastward. 
 They had no sooner commenced crossing the Namoesi Sipu, than the Alligewi, perceiving 
 their vast numbers, furiously attacked them, and threatened them all with destruction, if they 
 dared to persist in coming over. Fired at this treachery, the Lenape now consulted about 
 giving them a trial of their strength and courage. The Mengwe, who had remained spectators 
 at a distance, now offered to join them, on condition that, after conquering the country, 
 they should be entitled to share it with them. Their proposal was accepted, and the resolution 
 was taken by the two nations to conquer or die. The Lenape and Mengwe now declared 
 war against the Alligewi, and great battles were fought, in which many warriors fell on both 
 sides. The enemy fortified their large towns, and erected fortifications, especially on large 
 rivers and near lakes, where they were successively attacked, and sometimes stormed by 
 the allies. An engagement took place, in which hundreds fell, who were afterwards buried 
 in holes, or laid together in heaps and covered with earth. No quarter was given; so that 
 the Alligewi, finding their destruction inevitable if they persisted in their obstinacy, abandoned 
 the country to the conquerors, and fled down the Missisippi, whence they never returned. 
 The war lasted many years, and was very destructive." * 
 
 ;/'/-_ J -*.-■ <.-- 
 
 On the discovery of America, it is well known that the range of the Cordilleras, and 
 of mountains thence running south to the lower extremity of Peru, under the name of 
 Andes, were the abodes of a high state of civilization, the residences of nations dwelling 
 in cities, skilful in the texture of cloths, ingenious in the mechanical arts, and possessing 
 no small acquaintance with astronomy and general science: while the rest of America was 
 savage and benighted, without a ray of that intelligence which illumined the region just 
 alluded to. The enlightened country comprehended several nations differing in language 
 and government, yet possessing such affinities as indicate conclusively a common origin. 
 The most prominent tribes of this civilized family were the Aztecs, Toltecans, and Tlascalans, 
 inhabiting Mexico; the Muyscas, who dwelt where is now Colombia; and the Peruvians. 
 
 * History of New York, by Yates & Moulton, p. 32. 
 
16 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 Among these civilized people have been found national annals and records, which go 
 back to a period corresponding with our sixth century. They " there relate the name of the 
 illustrious Citix, who led, from the unknown regions of Aztalan and Teocolhuacan, the 
 northern nations into the plains of Anahuac." * [See note A, in the Appendix.] 
 
 No annals have been found proving a direct connexion between Mexico and Peru; yet 
 their languages, and manners and customs, as well as their anatomical devclopcments and 
 equal advance in the progress of civilization, indicate a common origin. Tradition directly 
 states, however, that their civilization emanated from the North. The first progenitors of 
 the Incas did not think proper to disclose to the people whence they really came, or what 
 was their true origin ;t yet so much was stated as that it was the ordinary traditionary 
 legend that " men with beards, and clearer complexions than the natives of Anahuac, 
 Condinamarca, and Cuzco, make their appearance without any indication of the place of 
 their birth, bearing the title of high priests, legislators, friends of peace and of the arts. 
 Quctzalcoatl, Bochica, and Manco Capac, are the sacred names of these mysterious beings. 
 Quctzalcoatl, clothed in a black sacerdotal robe, comes from Panuco, from the shores of the 
 Gulf of Mexico. Bochica presents himself on the high plains of Bogota, where he arrives 
 from the savannahs which stretch along the east of the Cordilleras." J 
 
 From this we might infer an original affinity between those who introduced civilization 
 into Mexico and Peru; but the strongest evidence on this point is that lately presented to 
 the British Association for the advancement of Science, section E. on Anatomy and Medicine, 
 by Dr. Warren, of Boston, U. S. He there read an essay "on some crania found in the 
 ancient mounds of North America," from the printed report of which arc gathered the 
 following facts, and which are fully confirmed by the examinations made by the writer of 
 these pages. 
 
 "The crania found in these mounds differ from those of the existing Indians, from 
 the Caucasian or European, and in fact from all existing nations, so far as they are 
 known. The forehead is broader and more elevated than in the North American Indian, 
 less broad and elevated than in the European. The orbits arc small and regular. The 
 jaws are sensibly prominent, less so than in the Indian, but more so than in the European. 
 
 * Trans. Views of Cordilleras, 
 t Gcnt.'s Magazine, Dec. 1751. 
 t Trans. Views of Cordilleras. 
 
E 1 
 
 htth by jSain\ p 
 
 
 f,.>4*</ <■<; \ (. Ill R8ESS it co. >#at/J$ 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 17 
 
 The palatine arch is of a rounded form, and its fossa less extensive than in the European, 
 owing principally to a greater breadth of the palatine plate of the os palati. But the most 
 remarkable appearance in these heads is an irregular flatness in the occipital region, 
 evidently produced by artificial means." The Doctor . also stated he had received other 
 crania, which, at first view, he believed to be of the same race and nation, for they 
 resemble them, in every peculiarity, more nearly than one Caucasian skull does another; 
 and he exhibited drawings and a cast in support of his assertion. These latter crania, he 
 said, were the skulls of ancient Peruvians. He asserted that, to himself, this fact furnished 
 an irresistible conclusion that the Peruvians and the " race of the mounds" were connected 
 by blood, and rendered it probable that the northern race, being driven from their country 
 by the ancestors of the present Indian tribes, retreated, after a long resistance, through 
 Mexico into South America, and gave origin to one of the nations which founded the 
 Peruvian empire. 
 
 In the investigation made by the writer in this branch of his inquiry, he finds the 
 " irregular flatness" to exist in many cases, as the Doctor asserts, " on the occipital 
 region" — but quite as often the compression is on the frontal bone. And to illustrate this, 
 he appends hereto a drawing of four crania. 
 
 No. 1 is the cranium of an ancient Peruvian, taken from the great Temple of the Sun, 
 from plate IX of Crania Americana by Dr. Morton of Philadelphia. No. 2 and No. 4 
 are crania in possession of the author, sent to him from the province of Velez, near 
 Bogota, by General James Semple, of the United States Legation at that place. 
 No. 3, however, is the faithful representation of a skull of one of the aboriginal inhabitants 
 of America, taken from a tumulus in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is in the possession of Mr. 
 Dorfeuille, of this city, a gentleman whose collection of aboriginal antiquities is large and 
 valuable. 
 
 A striking peculiarity is discoverable at once in these crania, viz: that they have each 
 been subject to artificial pressure in early life. No. 3 and No. 4 present uncommon 
 instances of it. No. 1 and No. 2 exhibit the usual form of cranium, both of the aboriginal 
 and Peruvian races. This custom of cranial compression, peculiar, so far as we can learn, 
 to these races, affords no slight warrant for our belief in an original identity. 
 
 E 
 
18 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 That these ancient remains were not constructed by the ancestors of the present Indian 
 trihes, may be inferred from the fact that no tradition lias enabled them at any time to 
 say when, by whom, or for what purpose they were made; and from the evidence they 
 bear of skill, mechanical ingenuity, and untiring perseverance and industry — qualities differing 
 widely from the characteristic traits of the North American Indian. At the same time, 
 anatomical investigation clearly defines them to be a distinct race. 
 
 As this essay is a chain of facts collected from many authors, and each forms a link 
 in the concatenation, the loss of one of which may break at once the argument to be 
 deduced, it were well to state the position we now occupy, viz: That we have traced the 
 descendants of that race which constructed our ancient works, by the following train of 
 argument: 
 
 I. The extension of tumuli, &c. through Western North America and Mexico to Peru, 
 induces a belief that the race which constructed them emigrated thither ; and their 
 termination there leads to the conclusion that the nation went no farther. 
 
 II. The traditions of the North American Indians assert distinctly their ejectment of 
 a people from the present region of Western North America, who correspond with the 
 native Mexicans, and who emigrated hence. 
 
 HI. On the discovery of America, a tract of country occupying the present limits of 
 Mexico, Colombia, and Peru, was in a high state of civilization, while all around them was 
 enshrouded in mental darkness. 
 
 IV. National annals have been found among the Mexicans, expressly stating that at a 
 period corresponding to our sixth century, their ancestors emigrated from the north, under 
 the guidance of their illustrious Emperor, Citin, or Votan. 
 
 V. Traditions assert that the introduction of civilization into Peru was by the emigration 
 of certain wise men from Mexico. 
 
 VI. Anatomical research exhibits a striking coincidence between the crania of the race 
 of the mounds, and of the ancient Peruvians, differing from all others in the world, and 
 proving conclusively that they were a distinct race from the ancestors of our present Indian 
 tribes. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 19 
 
 In the absence of positive evidence that the Peruvians were at some early period 
 identical with the Mexicans, we must content ourselves with circumstantial testimony; and 
 we possess that which is entitled to no light consideration. [See Note B, in the Appendix.] 
 
 1. We learn that "the Aztecs, who do not now disfigure the heads of their children, 
 represent their principal divinities, as their hieroglyphical manuscripts prove, with a head 
 more flattened than any I have seen among the Caribs." * Now Vega, the Spanish 
 historian, when narrating the conquests of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, speaks of one of the 
 Peruvian provinces called "Palta, (south lat. 3°) famous for the exquisite fruit so named; 
 here the nations, on the birth of an infant, tie a board on the forehead to another 
 behind the neck, and thus they remain for three years, to flatten the head." f The crania 
 also of the more ancient Peruvians and Mexicans generally possess the same peculiarity. 
 Li this coincidence we are presented with no unimportant evidence, viz: that the ancient 
 Mexican custom of compressing the cranium was still practised by some of the Peruvian 
 tribes on the discovery of America by the Spaniards. 
 
 2. In the farther progress of this essay, it will be necessary to mention the peculiar 
 construction of the Peruvian bridges. Suffice it here to say, that the mode of building 
 them was identical in Mexico and Peru. [See page 60.] 
 
 3. Such was the similarity of the appearance between the natives of Mexico, Colombia, 
 and Peru, that Ulloa, who spent ten years in those provinces, says, " if we have seen one 
 American, we may be said to have seen all, their color and make are so nearly alike." J 
 May we not, therefrom, infer unity at an early date? 
 
 4. We have authentic information that the country between Mexico and Peru was 
 settled by a prominent Mexican tribe on its emigration towards the south. "Copan was a 
 colony of Toltecas. Its king held dominion over the country extending to the eastward 
 from that of the Mayas,- or Yucatan, and reaching from the bay of Honduras nearly to 
 the Pacific, containing, on an average, about ten thousand square miles, now included in 
 the modern states of Honduras, Guatimala, and Salvador, and possessing several populous 
 and thriving towns and villages. The aborigines of this kingdom still use the Chorti 
 language, being a mixture of the Toltec dialect with some other still more ancient in these 
 
 * Note to p. 116, transl. Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne. 
 t Ranking's Conquest of Peru, p. 86. 
 t Chronica del Peru, parte 1, c. 19. 
 
20 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 parts." * Mexican emigration then furnished the inhabitants of the intermediate country 
 between Mexico and Peru. 
 
 5. 4i Les Incas construisircnt la forteresso du Couzco, d'apn-s des modules des edifices 
 plus anciens de Tiahuanaco, situes sous les 17° 12' de latitude australe." " — dans le 
 Haut Canada, coinino lc pretend le savant autcur des Noticias Americanos, il cxiste des 
 edifices qui, dans la coupe des picrrcs, dans la forme des portes et des petites niches, et 
 dans la distribution des appartemens, offrcnt des traces du style Penmen." f 
 
 From this circumstantial evidence, then, we dunk the subject is cleared of collateral 
 difficulties, and that we may safely proceed on the argument, that the region of civilization 
 among the aborigines of tho Cordilleras and Andes comprehended one large family, whom 
 the effects of climate and peculiarity of country have divided into different tribes and 
 nations, speaking diverse dialects, and possessing dissimilar customs; and were descended 
 from one common source, which emigrated from the north, and on its way constructed the 
 various tumuli, embankments, fossa, Sec. found in Western North America. At least, may 
 we not believe that so much evidence has been adduced as to throw the onus probandi 
 on him who doubts? 
 
 * Archaeologia Americana, vol. 2: letter from J. Gnlindo, &c. 
 t Vucs des Cordilleres, pp. 197, 198. Paris folio edition. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 21 
 
 We propose now an investigation of the inquiry, " whence is this family descended, 
 and where were their ancient homes? " 
 
 In pursuing systematically the chain of evidence, it is proposed to divide the argument 
 into the following branches: 
 
 1. The evidence from comparative philology. 
 
 2. That drawn from anatomy. 
 
 3. That deduced from their mythology. 
 
 4. That arising from their hieroglyphical writings. 
 
 5. That drawn from their astronomy. 
 
 6. The evidence derived from their architecture and decorations. 
 
 7. That deduced from their manners and customs. 
 
 F 
 
22 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 THE PHILOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 Ethnography, or " the classification of nations, from the comparative study of languages," 
 is a science horn almost within our memory, opening to the scholar new and unexplored 
 fields of vast extent, wherein to exercise the power of intellectual research. The erudite 
 and clocpient lecturer on the connexion between science and revealed religion, Dr. Wiseman, 
 a gentleman whose valuable treatises are daily earning laurels for him in America, alludes 
 thus to its rise and progress: "Not long since the learned world believed that the few 
 languages known might all be resolved into one, and that one probably the Hebrew. 
 Aroused by new discoveries which defied this easy vindication of the Mosaic history, 
 they saw the necessity of a new science which should dedicate its attention to the 
 classification of languages." * * "At first it seemed as though the infant science was 
 impatient of control, and its earliest progress seemed directly at variance with the soundest 
 truths. Gradually, however, masses which seemed floating in uncertainty came together, 
 and, like the garden islands of the Mexican lake, combined into compact and extensive 
 territories, capable and worthy of the finest cultivation. The languages, in other words, 
 grouped themselves into various large and well connected families, and thus greatly 
 reduced the number of primary idioms from which others have sprung. Like those grouped 
 but disunited masses, which geologists consider as the ruins of former mountains, we see 
 in the various dialects of the globe, tho wrecks of a vast monument belonging to the 
 ancient world. The nice exactness of their tallies in many parts, the veins of similar 
 appearance, which may be traced from one to the other, show that they have been once 
 connected, so as to form a whole; while the boldness and roughness of outline at the 
 points of separation, prove that it is no gradual devolution, no silent action, which has 
 divided, but some violent convulsion which has riven them asunder." * 
 
 "The number of languages which distinguish the different native tribes appears still 
 more considerable in the New Continent than in Africa, where, according to the researches 
 
 * Lectures on Connection of Science and Revealed Religion, by Dr. Wiseman: Lee. II, pp. 75, 77. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 23 
 
 of Seetzen and Vater, there are above one hundred and forty." * In America, there are 
 at least five hundred languages. "The Mexican languages alone exceed twenty, of which 
 fourteen dictionaries and grammars are tolerably complete." t "The configuration of the 
 soil, the strength of vegetation, the apprehensions of the mountaineers under the tropics of 
 exposing themselves to the burning heat of the plains, are obstacles to communication, and 
 contribute to the amazing variety of American dialects. This variety, it is observed, is 
 more restrained in the savannahs and forests of the north, which are easily traversed by 
 the hunter, on the banks of great rivers, along the coast of the ocean, and wherever the 
 Incas had established their theocracy by force of arms." J It is proper here to remark, 
 that, although there is such a variety of dialects in America, an accurate examination of 
 their structure has left no room to doubt that they all form one individual family, closely 
 knitted together, in all its parts, by grammatical analogy, "not of a vague, indefinite kind, 
 but complex in the extreme, affecting the most necessary and elementary parts of grammar."[| 
 Baron Humboldt, after an examination of the Mexican languages, says: "They bear 
 analogy in their whole organization, particularly in the complication of grammatical forms, 
 in the modification of the verb according to its syntax, and in the number of its additive 
 particles, affixa and suffixa." 
 
 It is not the proper place here to inquire into the cause of the variety of languages 
 discoverable in America, nor to trace the progress of that disuniting power which still 
 gradually and silently operates through the agency of separation, accident, oral corruption, 
 and want of communication. This is the proper task of the mere philologist. It is for 
 us to inquire into the results of the labors of learned men who have investigated and 
 analysed the languages themselves. 
 
 Professor Benjamin Smith Barton was the first to collect and classify American words. 
 After him followed Vater, who, in his Mithridates, published at Leipsic in 1810, carried 
 out the subject in an extended form. The result of their labors is thus stated: " In 
 
 * Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, I, 16. 
 
 t Essai Politique, I, 103. 
 
 t Views of Cordilleras, trans, vol. I, p. 17. 
 
 j| Dr. Wiseman's Lectures, II, 80. 
 
24 AX INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 eighty-three American languages, one hundred and seventy words have been found, the 
 roots of which have been the same in both continents; and it is easy to perceive that 
 this analogy is not accidental, since it does not rest merely on imitative harmony, or on 
 that conformity of organs which produces almost an identity in the first sounds articulated 
 by children. Of these, three-fifths resemble the Mantchou, Tongousc, Mongul, and Samoiede 
 languages; and two-filths the Celtic, Tchoud, Biscayan, Coptic, and Congo languages."* 
 
 The inquiry may be made. •• What Dumber of words, found to resemble one another 
 in different languages, will warrant our concluding them to be of common origin?" The 
 learned Dr. Young applied to this subject the mathematical test of the calculus of 
 probabilities, and says "it would appear therefrom that nothing whatever could be inferred 
 with respect to the relation of any two languages, from the coincidence of sense of any 
 single word in both of them; the odds would be three to one against the agreement of 
 any two words; but if three words appear to be identical, it would be then more than ten 
 to one that they must be derived in both cases from some parent language, or introduced 
 in some other manner; six words would give more than seventeen hundred chances to 
 one; and eight, near one hundred thousand: so that in these cases the evidence would 
 be little short of absolute certainty." f 
 
 Ethnography, then, has furnished conclusive evidence that the family of American 
 languages has had a common origin with that of Asia. A lexical comparison has 
 established an identity in one hundred and seventy words, although this study is yet in 
 its infancy: and this, relying on the correctness of Dr. Young's mathematical calculation, 
 is an argument which cannot be controverted. 
 
 r- 
 
 It has been stated that, of the various dialects of America, three-fifths resemble the 
 Mongolian languages of northern- Asia, and two-fifths the Coptic and other languages of 
 Scythic origin. It will also be recollected, that in our division of America, we have made 
 a partition which occupies a similar extent in point of territory, for savage America occupies 
 three-fifths of the continent, and the region of civilization the remaining two-fifths. 
 
 * Trans. Views of Cordilleras, I, 19. 
 
 t Philosophical Transactions, vol. CIX for 1818, p. 70. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 
 
 25 
 
 Those who would pursue this study with more exactness than a mere essay can afford, 
 are respectfully referred to the lexical resemblances contained in the Mithridates of Vater, 
 Julius Klaproth, and the elder and younger Adelung, as also to Balbi's Atlas Ethnographique. 
 
 The following examples, extracted from the vocabulary of Vater in Mithridates, th. HI, 
 p. 349, which extends to above sixty words, may serve as a specimen of these analogies: 
 
 AMERICAN LANGUAGES. ASIATIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 
 r 
 
 Nations. 
 
 Words. 
 
 i 
 
 Words. 
 
 Nations. 
 
 Mother, 
 
 (Tuscaroras, 
 (Six Nations, 
 
 Greenland, 
 
 1 Anah, 
 Ananak, 
 
 Anee, 
 
 (Ana, or ] 
 (Anakai, i 
 
 Tungusian. 
 Tartar. 
 
 Son, 
 
 Penobscot, 
 
 Naman, 
 
 Nioma, 
 
 Samoiede. 
 
 Brother, 
 
 Illinois, 
 
 Nika, 
 
 Neka, 
 
 Samoiede. 
 
 Child, 
 
 Delaware, 
 
 Nitsch, 
 
 Neutschu, 
 
 Samoiede. 
 
 Man, 
 
 (Tuscarora, 
 (Acadia, 
 
 Nekets, 
 Kessona, 
 
 Noekvet, 
 Hassee, 
 
 Kalmuc. 
 Ostiak. 
 
 Woman, 
 
 Tuscarora, 
 
 Kateocca, 
 
 Kaddi, 
 
 Tartar. 
 
 Nose, 
 
 New England, 
 
 Peechten, 
 
 Patsh, 
 
 Samoiede. 
 
 Eye, 
 
 (Mohican, 
 (Brazil, 
 
 Keeksq, 
 Desa, 
 
 Kus, 
 
 Dees, 
 
 Tartar. 
 Jenisean. 
 
 Ear, 
 
 Chilese, 
 
 Pilun, 
 
 pa, 
 
 Ostiak. 
 
 Cheek, 
 
 Huastec, 
 
 Xal, or Chal, 
 
 Chalga, 
 
 Mongole. 
 
 Tongue, 
 
 (Quichua, 
 ( Carribee, 
 
 Kalli, 
 Inigne, 
 
 Kyle, 
 Ingm, 
 
 Mongole. 
 Tunguse. 
 
 Beard, 
 
 Tarahumara, 
 
 Etshaguala, 
 
 (Sagal, 
 (Sachyl, 
 
 Tartar. 
 Kalmuc. 
 
 Sun, 
 
 (New England, 
 (Tarahumara, 
 
 Cone, 
 Taika, 
 
 Cun, 
 Tueikuel, 
 
 Tartar. 
 Koriak. 
 
 Star, 
 
 Kotou, 
 
 Alagan, 
 
 Alak, 
 
 Assan. 
 
 Year, 
 
 Quichua, 
 
 Huata, 
 
 Hoet, 
 
 Ostiak. 
 
 River, 
 
 Vilela, 
 
 Itels, 
 
 Idel, 
 
 Tartar. 
 
 Fire, 
 
 Brazil, 
 
 Tata, 
 
 Tat, 
 
 Ostiak. 
 
 Having met with a few instances of affinity not recorded in Vater's work, they are 
 here mentioned, to serve as additional illustrations of the positions assumed. 
 
 A learned philologist, in a disquisition on the languages of Europe, introduces the 
 
 following remarks: "There is a very striking circumstance in a close affinity between 
 
 the names of some of the numbers of the Delawares, who, in adding the units to the 
 
 tens, say nisha naghky, twenty; naha naghky, thirty; nehar naghky, forty; and so on, 
 
 G 
 
20 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 using the last to signify ten, and the first the number of tens: the Poles, for eleven, 
 say ieden nascie, for twelve, dwa tuude; and so on, until they come to twenty; so the 
 Russians say for these same numbers, mil nazet, ttca nazet, Sec. Again, the Delawares 
 say hot I puchkij for one hundred; and the Poles say puckzects, for five hundred. Nowi 
 if chance has produced these surprising agreements in nations so remote, they are very 
 curious at least; but I am inclined to think there is too close an affinity between 
 them, (being used for the very same numbers in each of these nations,) to be ascribed 
 to any accidental cause, and that their origin was from the same source, however remote 
 their situation." * Thus writes an early and learned philologist. It will be seen hereafter 
 that his conjecture was nearly (if not quite) correct. [See page 80, showing the 
 introduction of language into these regions.] 
 
 In another place he remarks "I find the Indians, all over America, except the 
 Carribeans, in this method, who, according to their several languages, give names to each 
 unit, from one to ten, and proceed to add a unit to the ten, till there are two tens, 
 to which sum they give a peculiar name; and so to three tens, four tens, and till it 
 come to ten times ten, or to any number of tens. This is the case all over the east 
 also, even among the Malays, of whose numbers I had the names given me by persons 
 who resided among them for many years, and spoke their language." f 
 
 These quotations suffice as mere examples of many philological affinities existing 
 between the languages, both lexical and numerical, of savage America and the nations 
 of the 3Iongolian family. One or two instances of affinity, to illustrate the connexion 
 between civilized America and the Scythic race. " Cami is the name of the gods of 
 Japan." [Kcempfer, p. 156.] " Ccmi, that of the Caciques [Robertson, I, 148] of Mexico. 
 And Cama. the soul, is the root of the words Pacha Camac of the Peruvians." \ 
 " Pacha-Camac" means " Sovereign Lord," and was applied to their Creator. According 
 to Vega, " Pacha" means " Sovereign," just as it docs in the Moslem tongue, and 
 " Camac" means " God," as does " Cami," in southern Asia. This Peruvian Deity named 
 
 * Parson's Remains of .T;i[>hrl. p. 342. 
 t Parson's Remains of Japhet, p. 310. 
 \ Ranking 1 ? Conquest of Peru, p. 251. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 27 
 
 " Camac," we perhaps find alluded to in the following quotations from the Rudhiradhyaha, 
 or sanguinary chapter, translated from the Calica Pjran. * 
 
 " — By human flesh, Camac-hya,, Chandica, Bhairava, who assumes my shape, are 
 pleased one thousand years." 
 
 " — Let those I now tell you be joined to them, and the axe invoked; and particularly 
 so, when the sacrifice is to be made to the goddesses Durga, and Cawiac-hya." 
 
 " — The victim, who is sinful, and impure with ordure and urine, Camac-hya will 
 not even hear named." 
 
 Again: "The sun, in the language of the Incas, bears the name of Inti, nearly the 
 same as in the Sanscrit " — "In the language of the Incas, the sun is inti; love, munay ; 
 great, veypul; in Sanscrit, the sun, indre; love, manya; great, vipulo." t 
 
 From this we may certainly infer something more than mere chance. The affinities 
 are too striking to allow us to suppose them accidental. 
 
 In reviewing, then, the results to which philology inevitably brings us, and of which 
 but a few instances are here adduced, we are obliged to refer the savage and larger portion 
 of America to the north of Asia, and the civilized family of Mexico and Peru to ancient 
 Egypt and southern Asia. Let us then, inquire whether the results arrived at by 
 comparative philology are substantiated and confirmed by other branches of science: and 
 therefore proceed to trace back the aboriginal inhabitants of America to their ancient 
 homes in Asia, by means of an inquiry into their anatomical developements, their 
 mythological traditions, their style of architecture, their hieroglyphic system, their astronomical 
 science, their skill and peculiarity in ornament, and their manners and customs. 
 
 * Sir Wm. Jones' Works, (supplement,) vol. 2, p. 1057. 
 t Vater, Mithridates : T. 3, p. 333. 
 
AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 THE ANATOMICAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 The norma vcrticalis of Blumcnbach has established three leading divisions of the 
 human family, viz the Caucasian, the Ethiopian, and the Mongolian races. 
 
 The cranium of the Caucasian family is symmetrical, and the zygomatic arches enter 
 into the general outline, while the cheek and jaw bones are concealed by the prominence 
 of the forehead. The Mongolian or Northern Asiatic skull is distinguished by the 
 extraordinary breadth of its front, in which the zygomatic arch is completely detached 
 from the general circumference, not from depression in this as in the negro, but from 
 the enormous lateral prominence of the check bones. The forehead is much depressed, 
 and the upper jaw protuberant. 
 
 Now what saith anatomy touching the cranium of the North American Indian? 
 Pritchard, in his observations on the platy-bregmate skulls, remarks: "It seems doubtful 
 whether there arc any strongly marked and universal characters which distinguish the 
 skulls of the American nations from those of the Northern Asiatics. Travellers, who 
 have described particular nations among the aborigines of America, have often been struck 
 with their resemblance, in feature and in the shape of the head, to the Kalmuc or 
 Mongole race. To this race many other nations in the north of Asia bear a strong 
 resemblance. From the numerous assertions, to be found in a variety of authors, of 
 this analogy, it would appear to be very decidedly marked; and we do not find that 
 any clearly defined difference has been generally proved between the two classes of 
 nations." * Thence we may justly infer some original affinity between the Indians of 
 North America and the nomadic tribes of Northern Asia. 
 
 Again: "The portrait painter, Mr. Smibert, who accompanied Dr. Berkeley, then 
 Dean of Derry, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, from Italy to America, in 1728, was 
 
 •Physical History of Mankind: vol 1, p. 182. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 29 
 
 employed by the Grand Difke of Florence to paint two or three Siberian Tartars, 
 presented to the Duke by the Czar of Russia. Mr. Smibert, on his landing at 
 Narragansett Bay with Dr. Berkeley, instantly recognised the Indians to be the same 
 people as the Siberian Tartars whose pictures he had taken. I shall show that the 
 language of the Siberian Tartars and that of the Tongousi, have an extensive range in 
 North America." * 
 
 A farther striking coincidence between the Mongolian race and that of the American 
 Indian, may be noticed in their roving, wild, and savage disposition. The following 
 picture of the Indian is believed to be a faithful portrait: 
 
 " The native bent of the Caucasian is to civilization. Of the North American the 
 reverse is true. Savageism, a roving life, and a home in the forest, are as natural 
 to them, and as essential to their existence, as to the buffalo or the bear. Civilization 
 is destined to exterminate them, in common with the wild animals, among which they 
 have lived, and on which they have subsisted. All experience admonishes of this. In 
 numbers the Indians and buffaloes of our western wilds diminish alike, and from similar 
 causes. And they retreat alike from civilization. Neither of them can flourish in a 
 domesticated state. As soon, and as much in conformity with nature, shall -the olive 
 be fruitful on the coast of Labrador. As readily shall the wolf and fox become faithful 
 house-dogs, as the entire Indian a civilized and cultivated man." f 
 
 The Mongolian race, as the American, contains several subdivisions, many tribes 
 possessing dissimilar customs, habits, and languages. But throughout the whole north 
 of Asia, we find this family leading a nomadic or roving and savage life. Equally 
 given to war and to the chase, they both reject the light of civilization gleaming over 
 their southern borders. 
 
 From philological affinity, from the identity of craniological developements, and from 
 their national characteristic wildness, may we not fairly infer that the North American 
 Indians and "the northern Asiatic tribes have had a common origin? 
 
 * Dr. B. S. Barton, pp. XVI, XVII. 
 
 t N. Am. Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. XII : article on " Unity of the Human Race." 
 
 H 
 
30 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 Here, means of access to specimens which would throw light on the connexion between 
 the civilized portion of aboriginal America and the Old World have been very limited; 
 yet as far as they go, they are very conclusive. By referring to the opposite plate, a striking 
 coincidence of craniological developement is perceived. Fig. 1 is the cranium of an 
 Egyptian mummy, presented by Belzoni to Mr. Dorfeuille of this city, and now in his 
 possession. The cranium has a severe gash on the frontal bone. Fig. 2 is the 
 representation of a cranium dug from an ancient burying-ground at the temple of 
 Pacha-Camac at Lurin, fourteen miles from Lima ; it is in possession of S. W. 
 Pomcrov, jr. Esq. of this city. Figs. 3 and 4 arc the representation of a Mexican 
 Emperor and his attendants, as portrayed on a "has relief Mcxicaine," taken from the 
 folio edition of Baron Humboldt's Views of the Cordilleras, published at Paris. 
 
 In the first two crania we notice the usual want of frontal elevation, and a similarity 
 of occipital depression. In the other figures, the flatness is on the frontal bone, and 
 corresponds with that represented in fig. 4 of plate I. This limited comparison, however, 
 though the resemblances may be strong, cannot fairly afford sufficient basis whereon to 
 ground an argument. 
 
 In the communication from Dr. Warren, which has been heretofore alluded to, he 
 distinctly states his belief that the existing race of Indians originally came from the 
 northern part of Asia ; but in the report of his essay, no reasons are advanced in 
 support of that conclusion. The most important item therein is thus stated: "Anatomy 
 shows there is much resemblance between the crania of the race of the mounds and 
 ancient Peru, with those of the modern Hindoos." The similarity, too, is so striking 
 as to induce him to draw the conclusion that the race of the mounds and of Peru 
 are derived from the southern part of Asia. From the paucity of craniological collections, 
 and the limited means of information on this topic, we must base our opinion on the 
 testimony of the learned Doctor, and on the resemblances exhibited in the plate just 
 referred to. Perhaps this opinion may be confirmed by the next topic, viz: 
 
PLATE II 
 
 >>nm\ n 
 
 ^» *J&/*» ■&& t^zSt &6*€>e&**t4£ . 
 
 rSu/6*,'/fy n t; BQROaBfl k-CO ■^'fy 'Stia*^*^ 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 31 
 
 THE MYTHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 "A learned writer, Count Scholberg, who has made some curious comparisons 
 between the mythological ideas of different nations, has hazarded the hypothesis that 
 the two religious sects of India, the worshippers of Vishnu and those of Siva, had 
 spread themselves into America; and that the Peruvian worship was that of Vishnu, 
 when he appeared under the form of Chrishna, or the Sun : whilst the sanguinary 
 worship of the Mexicans is analogous to that of Siva, when he takes the character of 
 the Stygian Jupiter." * It is by no means a slight coincidence that, in the civilized 
 family of Mexico and Peru, there exist two religions, corresponding, as to Deity, with 
 the mydiological worship of two sects in the country which both philology and anatomy 
 have indicated as the place of their origin : the one worshipping the sun with peaceful 
 offerings; the other, with cruel immolations of human victims, adoring the deity of wrathful 
 impulses. 
 
 The greatest festival of the Peruvians was that of the sun, or " Raymi." " The 
 nobles, governors, the principal and other commanders, all endeavored to be present at 
 this, the grandest of the four annual feasts, held after the solstice, in June. The Inca 
 attended in person, as the high priest and eldest son of the luminary, their god." f 
 
 By a reference to Sir Wm. Jones' Works, it will be found that " Rama, the Hindoo 
 god, is one of the Children of the Sun." J " His wife's name is Sita, and it is very 
 remarkable that the Peruvians, whose Incas boasted the same descent, style their great 
 festival Rama-Sitoa." " The Egyptian women," said the Bishop of Llandaff, " made 
 sacred cakes of flour, which they offered to the Queen of Heaven at their principal 
 solar festivals, called Raymi and Citoa. The Peruvian women did the same. . It is 
 also a Hindoo custom, still existing." § 
 
 * Trans. Views of Cordilleras, p. 213. 
 
 | Ranking's Conquest of Peru, pp. 183, 184. 
 
 t Sir Wm. Jones 1 Works, vol. 1, p. 298. 
 
 5 Ilees' Cyclop, art. " Rama " 
 
32 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 Here, again, is a coincidence between the aborigines of America and the southern 
 Asiatics, that we cannot fairly attribute to mere chance. 
 
 "The Mexicans had some ideas of a supreme God, to whom they gave fear and 
 adoration. They did not represent him by any visible form, calling him 'Teotl,' or 
 God, to whom they applied expressions highly characteristic of his nature. They also 
 believed in an evil spirit, called ' TlacatccolotlJ or ' rational owl.' * They had three 
 places for the souls of departed mortals. Those who died in battle, or in captivity with 
 enemies, and women in labor, went to the House of the Sun, where they led a life 
 of unbounded delight and pleasure. They supposed that after four years had passed 
 in this happy state, the souls then went to animate clouds, and birds of beautiful feather. 
 The Tlascalans believed the souls of persons of rank tenanted the bodies of nobler 
 animals than those of the plebeians, who were supposed to pass into weasels, beetles, 
 and such insignificant animals. Those who were drowned, struck by lightning, died of 
 dropsy, tumors, &c. went along with the souls of children, at least those sacrificed to 
 Tlaloc, | God of Water, to a cool and delightful place, called Tlalocan, where that god 
 resided, and where they were to enjoy the most delicious repasts, with every other kind 
 of pleasure. The third place, allotted for tho souls of those who suffered any other 
 kind of death, was called 31ictlan, or Hell, which they supposed was a place of utter 
 darkness in the north, or, as others said, in the centre of the earth." \ 
 
 Here we recognise, at once, the Hindoo mythological fable of the metempsychosis — 
 the transmigration of the soul into the bodies of birds, of clouds, of animals, and of 
 reptiles. Is this coincidence merely accidental ? Mr. Maurice, in his History of the 
 Hindoos, asserts from the Aycen Akbery, that this doctrine can be found in the earliest 
 writings of the Hindoos, which are as old as the Pentateuch of Moses. 
 
 * Tho Mexicans were in the habit of worshipping rude sculptures of this evil spirit, to prevent his anger, and 
 consequent dangerous power. One of these images was dug out of a large tumulus in the city of Columbus, the 
 capital of Ohio, and was exhibited to the Historical Society when an abstract of this essay was read by the author. 
 It is an owl, rudely carved out of a block of sand-stone, on the back of which are two holes apparently bored by 
 u conical instrument, and in such a direction as to meet at the points, so that a thong can be passed through, by 
 which the idol can be suspend,*!. 
 
 | May we not here detect the analogous worship of Gunga, Goddess of Water, in Hindostan, and to whom mothers 
 sacrificed their infant children? 
 
 X Researches on Americii. by an officer of the army. Bait. 1816. 
 
r : 
 
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 '■■■" 'V •' ■ " ' • WJM^f 
 
 ■%J6oAed,fy v. O BURGHS K CO A? 27 £*rS te. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 33 
 
 But although these analogies are striking, if these people came originally from the 
 southern part of Asia, from the birth-place of mankind, there must be found among 
 them traces of the early history of the human family as handed down to us by revelation: 
 obscured, of course, by tradition, yet not so much so but that we can trace their identity. 
 That such do actually exist, we will endeavor now to show. 
 
 The opposite plate is the copy of a Mexican painting taken from the Codex Vaticanus, 
 at Rome, whither it arrived from the New Continent, shortly after the early conquests 
 in New Spain. It will be found in the Paris folio edition of Baron Humboldt's 
 "Vues des Cordilleres." The large figure represents the celebrated "serpent woman," 
 Cihuacohuatl, called, also, Tonacacihua, " woman of our flesh." The Mexicans 
 considered her the mother of the human race. She is always represented with a great 
 serpent; but for this no reason is assigned, as though, in process of time, part of the 
 tradition were lost. Behind the serpent, who appears to be speaking to Eve, are two 
 naked figures, of different color, and in the attitude of contention. The serpent woman 
 was considered at Mexico as the mother of twin children, and which are here 
 represented. This part of the painting is entirely unexplained. Baron Humboldt supposes 
 they represent Cain and Abel, of Semitic tradition. He considers the other figures, 
 however, merely as vases, respecting which a quarrel may have ensued. I would 
 respectfully suggest that (if so much be conceded, as is necessarily true, that the chief 
 figures are Eve, the serpent, Cain and Abel) then the others are the two altars, one 
 of which, standing erect, bears the offering of Abel, viz: a ram, the horns of which 
 are rudely delineated: while the other is the altar of Cain, rejected by the Almighty, 
 and therefore painted upside down, containing his offering, viz: the fruits of the earth. 
 Baron Humboldt thinks the difference of the color of Cain attributable perhaps to fancy 
 or chance. May we not consider it typical of the mark set on the murderer by 
 Jehovah for the heinousness of his guilt? For it will be noticed that Abel is 
 represented with the same tint as Eve; and from the general care in the distribution 
 of colors through the piece, we cannot infer want of design. 
 
 A tradition exists among the native Mexicans bearing close analogy to the Semitic 
 
 account of the flood, the building of the tower of Babel, and its destruction; and 
 
 I 
 
31 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 which corresponds with the early traditions of Xisthurus of the Hindoos. A manuscript 
 of Pedro do los Rios, a Dominican monk, who copied on the spot all the hieroglyphic 
 paintings he could procure in New Spain, A. D. 1566, says 
 
 u Before the great inundation, which took place four thousand eight hundred years 
 after the creation of the world, the country of Anahuac (Mexico) was inhabited by 
 giants. All those who did not perish were transformed into fishes, except seven, who 
 fled into caverns. When the waters subsided, one of these giants, Xelhua, surnamed 
 ' the Architect,' went to Cholollan, where, as a memorial of the mountain Tlaloc, which 
 had served as an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill, 
 in the form of a pyramid. He ordered bricks to be made in the province of Tlananalco, 
 at the foot of the sierra of Cocotl, and to convey them to Cholula, he placed a file 
 of men, who passed them from hand to hand. The gods beheld with wrath this 
 edifice, the top of which was to reach the clouds. Irritated at the daring attempt of 
 Xelhua, they hurled fire on the pyramid. Numbers of the workmen perished. The 
 work was discontinued, and the monument was afterwards dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, 
 the God of the Air." 
 
 A very remarkable analogy between the mythology of the civilized family of Mexico 
 and Peru, and the nations of southern Asia, is to be found in their respective 
 cosmogonical fictions of the periodical destructions and regenerations of the world. The 
 correspondence is truly singular. It is attributable, perhaps, to their being traditionary 
 corruptions of historical anecdotes of early dates, known to mankind only when they 
 were in proximity at the birth-place of the world. Perhaps, after stating the traditions 
 of the New Continent, wc may trace the anecdotes to which they allude, and thereby 
 exhibit an additional degree of evidence to that which has thus far been presented, to 
 show that southern Asia was the original home of the civilized aboriginal race of America. 
 The following description of the Mexican cosmogony is condensed from the valuable 
 work of Baron Humboldt, " des anciens monumens de 1'Amerique." 
 
 The sacred books of the Hindoos, especially the Bhagavita Pourana, speak of the 
 four ages, and of the pralayas, or cataclysms, which, at different epochs, have destroyed 
 the human race. Gomara, in his Conqitista, fol. CXIX, says that the natives of Culhua 
 believe, according to their hicroglyphical paintings, that, previous to the sun which now 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 35 
 
 enlightens them, four had already been extinguished. These four suns are as many 
 ages, in which our species has been annihilated by inundations, by earthquakes, by a 
 general conflagration, and by the effect of destroying tempests. The Codex Vaticanus, 
 at Rome No. 3738, contains the drawings which are represented on the annexed pages, 
 being copies of native hieroglyphic paintings, made by the Dominican monk, Pedro de 
 los Rios, A D. 1566. They illustrate the destruction of the world at the expiration 
 of each age, and are described in a very curious history, written in the Aztec tongue, 
 fragments of which have been preserved by the native Mexican, Fernando de Alvar 
 Ixtlilochitl. The testimony of a native writer, and the copies of Mexican paintings, 
 made on the spot, merit, undoubtedly, more confidence than the recital of the Spanish 
 historians. 
 
Tho first cycle here represented had a duration of five thousand two hundred and 
 six years. This numher is indicated by nineteen rounds on the right of the picture, 
 thirteen of which are surmounted by a feather, which, in the 3Iexican calendar, is the 
 hieroglyphic denoting " the square of twenty." By multiplying the thirteen years by 
 the square of twenty, viz: 400, and then adding the six upper rounds, we have the 
 duration of the cycle of this age of the world. This age is called by the Mexicans 
 Tlalfonitiuh, age of the earth, and corresponds with the age of justice (Sakia 
 Youga) of the -Hindoos, and the golden age, or reign of Saturn, among the Greeks. 
 The termination of this age was a direful famine. The hieroglyphic painting represents 
 a malignant spirit descending on the earth to root up the grass and the flowers. Three 
 human figures, among which we easily recognise a woman, by her head-dress of two 
 small tresses resembling horns, hold in their right hands a sharp-edged instrument, and 
 in their left, fruit, or ears of corn. The spirit that announces famine wears one of those 
 rosaries which, from time immemorial, have been in use in Thibet, China, Canada, and 
 Mexico, and which are also found interred with the occupants of the ancient tumuli. 
 
I 
 
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 Is 
 
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 P 
 
 4 
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The duration of the second cycle is four thousand eight hundred and four years, 
 
 deciphered in the same manner with the preceding cycle, viz : 12 X 400 + 4 = 4804. 
 
 This is "the age of fire," called Tletanotiuh, or "the red age," called TzonchichiltecTc. 
 
 The painting represents the god of fire, Xiuhteuctli, descending on the earth. As the 
 
 birds alone were able to escape the general conflagration, tradition states that all men 
 
 were transformed into birds, except one man and one woman, who saved themselves in 
 
 the recess of a cavern. 
 
 K 
 
The duration of the third age was four thousand and ten years : 10 X 400 + 10 = 4010. 
 The painting exhibits the 3Iexican hieroglyphic of wind, in four places, and the age is 
 called " the age of wind," Eliecatonitiuh. At the termination of this age, men perished 
 by hurricanes, and some were transformed into apes. The deity descending on the earth 
 is supposed to be the god of the air, and his sickle seems to indicate the destructive 
 force of hurricanes in uprooting the trees. 
 

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The fourth cycle lasted four thousand and eight years : 10 X 400 + 8 = 4008, the 
 termination of which was a great inundation, which destroyed all mankind. Men were 
 transformed into fish, except one man and one woman, who saved themselves in the 
 trunk of an ahuehuete, or deciduous cypress, (cupressus dysticha.) The drawing represents 
 the goddess of water, and Noah and his wife, (Coxcox and Xochiquetzal,) seated on 
 the trunk of a tree, covered with leaves, and floating amidst the waters. 
 
 The detached hieroglyphics on the left hand of these pictures are the astronomical, 
 or rather zodiacal symbols, denoting the day on which each catastrophe is believed to 
 have occurred. 
 
 v 
 
40 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 These traditions probably refer to events which occurred in the earliest ages of 
 mankind; for \vc can trace a similitude in the ancient mythological fables of almost all 
 nations. Here we are presented, however, with a scries of events, believed, according 
 both to the southern Asiatics and Mexicans, to have been cosmogonical cataclysms. 
 Thev have received them as traditions handed down through the lapse of ages, from 
 parent to child. Now we possess the light of revelation. We have an authentic history 
 of the earliest ages of the world, and from this we may derive a standard with which 
 to compare these curious relics of mythology, establish the events to which they allude, 
 and cut off all that is mere fable or corrupted tradition. 
 
 One cycle was terminated by a direful famine. Now, we arc informed in the 
 sacred volume that *• the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had 
 said ; and' the dearth was in all lands." " And the famine was over all the face of the 
 earth; and Joseph opened all the store-houses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the 
 famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to 
 Joseph for to buy corn ; because that the famine was so sore in all lands." * 
 
 This may perhaps be the origin of the tradition on which is founded the mythological 
 fable of the age of famine. 
 
 Again : the second cycle was the age of fire. Men perished by fire, except a man 
 and a woman, who escaped by fleeing to and dwelling in a cave. May not this easily be sup- 
 posed a corruption of the true version of the destruction of the cities of the plain? The 
 holy word describes clearly the destruction of certain cities, in these words: "Then the 
 Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of 
 Heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of 
 the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. And it came to pass, when God 
 destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot 
 out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. 
 And Lot went up out of Zoar. and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters 
 
 * Genesis, XLI, v. 54, 56. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 41 
 
 with him ; for he feared to dwell in Zoar, and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two 
 
 daughters."* 
 
 The third cycle is difficult of solution. No passage in holy writ occurs to me as 
 furnishing the incident to which it alludes. It may perhaps refer to the destruction of 
 the tower of Babel, which (we learn from Josephus) was destroyed by hurricanes.f 
 The sequel, we think, will justify this conclusion. (See pages 70, 71.) . 
 
 The fourth cycle was terminated by a great deluge, which is beyond doubt a traditionary 
 account of that recorded in the sacred volume. 
 
 It may be urged that these events are not in chronological order. In reply, it is 
 to be observed, that their arrangement in this manner is a matter of dispute among all 
 antiquarian mythologists, and that either way may be correct. We find only one writer 
 indeed who arranges them in the manner here given, all others taking them in the order in 
 which we know the events to have actually occurred. Be it either way, the mere order of 
 narration is of no importance compared with the matter itself. 
 
 Here, then, we close the mythological evidence by a brief summary, viz: That first, 
 proof is adduced showing an identity between the religious sects of India and Mexico, 
 and between the deities of each country; and a close correspondence is detected in 
 their cosmogony. Still farther and more important evidence, however, renders the point 
 conclusive that southern Asia was the birth-place of this people, as we detect among 
 them actual traditions of the flood, the building of Babel, and the death of Abel; and 
 from their cosmogony, we think we trace farther traditions of the famine, and the 
 destruction of the cities of the plain. These historical facts stamp their origin conclusively, 
 as they are peculiar to those who have once been residents of the country where the 
 transactions occurred. 
 
 * Genesis, XIX, v. 24, 25, 29, and 30. 
 
 t " Ot it Sat tmptiiK~irrimiA-{cirTK ay£Tge-{.*i> ten Tlv^ym, km ifutr scaa-Ta <f»»v£iTaixav." Josephus, Ant. I, 1, c. 4 
 
 I- 
 
42 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 THE HIEROGLYPHIC EVIDENCE. 
 
 One of the most interesting sources of comparison between Mexico, Peru, and Egypt, 
 is to be found in an investigation of their hieroglyphic system. Each of these countries had 
 a peculiar method of recording events by means of hieroglyphic signs, sculpturing them on 
 monuments and buildings, and portraying them on papyrus and maguey. Before, however, 
 these came into use, we find a different custom prevailing, which was also common to those 
 races. 
 
 Speaking of the ancient Peruvians, Acosta says: "Their registers and accounts were 
 kept by strings, with knots upon them of different colors: yellow to represent gold, red for 
 soldiers, white for silver, <fcc." "He saw a woman with a handful of these strings, which, 
 she said, contained a general confession of her life." * " Before the introduction of 
 hieroglyphical painting, the nations of the vale of Mexico made use of these quipos, and 
 they are found among the Canadians." f 
 
 Father DuIIaldc, in his History of China, distinctly asserts that " ' Fohi,' the first 
 Emperor of China, finding the knotted cords, hitherto used by the Chinese, were unfit to 
 publish his laws, therefore invented characters.*' Here, then, was a peculiar custom, identical 
 in the earliest ages between the Peruvians, the Mexicans, and the colonists from southern 
 Asia, who founded the Chinese Empire under their first monarch, " Fohi." 
 
 As yet there has been found, among the 3Iexican nations generally, the use of 
 hieroglyphical paintings, but no alphabetic characters. They appear to have been operated 
 on as the Chinese, who, for thousands of years have contented themselves with two hundred 
 and fourteen radical hieroglyphics, the inflexions and combinations of which serve their purposes. 
 It were impossible at present to enter fully into an analysis of 3Iexican and Egyptian hieroglyphics. 
 This is a task in reserve for some future Champollion, whose talent and ingenuity will find a rich 
 field open to him in the vast monuments of Copan, Palenque, Tenochtitlan, and Couzco. They 
 
 * Acosta in Purchas: vol. Ill, p. 1053. 
 t Ranking's Conquest of Peru: p. 147. 
 
wl \ m vm 
 
 
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 SL&udaa -( \ i; in HUtss B CO, . /-V> 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 43 
 
 are yet an enigma to the world for some future CEdipus to solve. Let us endeavor, however, to 
 establish the few points which the imperfect knowledge of the present day, touching these 
 subjects, shows to possess analogy. 
 
 Hieroglyphic writings are necessarily of three kinds, viz: phonetic, figurative, and symbolical. 
 
 The phonetic symbol is that which expresses sound. These signs ChampoUion has 
 demonstrated to form the most considerable part of all Egyptian texts. The characters 
 constitute a system purely alphabetical; that is, each character corresponds invariably to an 
 alphabetical letter. This species of writing was discovered by ChampoUion in deciphering 
 foreign names on the monuments, and which of course required signs expressive of sound to 
 their inscription. To be more readily understood, the drawing on the opposite page represents 
 the Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription of the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, as they appear 
 on the Rosetta monument * 
 
 The names, it is perceived, are surrounded by a line, called by ChampoUion a " cartouche." 
 These rectangles with elliptical terminations are always used to designate the group which 
 composes the word. The idea occurred to ChampoUion that the symbols comprehended. within 
 these cartouches were phonetic; and, on examination, he elicited the following result, viz: 
 
 Fig. 1. The Coptic word meaning a square, gave him the initial P. That answering to 
 a semi-circle began with T. The flower, with the stalk bent back, called "the Jctiop" in 
 Coptic, gave the letter O. The Coptic word " Labo" gave the next phonetic letter. Mouladj, 
 latinice, " nyctycorax" gave M. Two feathers gave each the letter corresponding to the 
 Greek E, and of course the two were equal in value to the letter H in Greek; while the final 
 symbol gives the initial of the word Sebianajo, a flute, or musical wind instrument. If, then, 
 he could find the same symbols, corresponding to the same letters, in another cartouche and 
 name, his discovery would be complete ; which is shown in 
 
 Fig. 2. The triangle furnished the Coptic K. " Labo" again gave the letter L. The 
 feather again produced the initial E. The flower "knop" once more corresponded to O. 
 The square again gave the initial P. Akom, " the eagle,'' gave the letter A. Tot, " the hand," 
 
 * Stuart's Commentary on Greppo's Essay on ChampoUion. Appendix. 
 
44 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 gave die tetter T. R/O, "the open mouth," furnished tho initial R. And Akom, repeated, 
 gave once more die letter A. The somicirclo and oval were found, hy suhsequcnt discovery, 
 to imply the feminine gender. 
 
 Here, then, are the names I1TOAMHS, and KAEOOATRA, written in phonetic 
 hieroglyphics. 
 
 '• On trouve mnne chcz les Mexicains des vestiges de ce genre d'hieroglyphes que Ton 
 BppeQe phonetiques, et qui annoncent des rapports, non avcc la chose, mais avcc la Iangue parleo. 
 Chez dee peoples a demi barfoarea les noms des individus, ceux des villes, et des montagnes, 
 font gem raleincnt allusion a des ohjets qui frappcnt les sens, tels que la forme des plantes et 
 des aniiiiaiix. !<• feu. Pair, on la terrc. Cctte circonstancc a fourni des moycns aux peuples 
 Aztequcs do pouvoir eerire les noms des villes, et ccux do leurs souverains. La traduction 
 verhale d'Axajiicatl est visage d'cau; celle d'llhuicamina fleche qui perce le ciel : ou pour 
 representer les rois Motcuczoma, Ilhuicamina, et Axajacatl, le peintrc reunissoit les hieroglyphes 
 de l'eau et du ciel, a la figure d'un tete et d'une fleche. Les noms des villes de Macuilxochitl, 
 Quauhtinehan, et Tehuilojoccan, significnt cinq fleurs, maison de l'aigle, et lieu des miroirs; 
 pour indiqucr ccs trois villes, on peignoit une fleur placee sur cinq points, une maison de 
 laquelle sortoit la tete d'un aigle, et un miroir d'obsidienne. De cette maniere, la reunion du 
 plusieiirs hieroglyphes simples indiquoit les noms composes; elle le faisoit par des signes qui 
 parloient a la fois aux ycux et a I'oroille; souvent aussi les caracteres qui designoient les 
 villes et les provinces eloient. tires des productions du sol ou de l'industrie des hahitans." * 
 
 Again: -The phonetic system of the Toltccans is intelligible at the first glance. The 
 sounds intended to be conveyed hy the symbols are conveyed symbolically and heraldicallv. 
 The names common even to this day among the American aborigines, such as 'wolf,' 'great 
 bear, 1 • rattlesnake.' &C are represented by crests rudely fashioning the same animal form, 
 which surmount the helmets of their warriors and the diadems of their kinss. 
 
 "The head of a Toltccan king appears along with the others sculptured in the pyramidal 
 lower of Palenqne. Over it is the name inscribed, in an oblong phonetic rectangle, 
 (corresponding to the Egyptian cartouche.) The name is Acatla-Potzix. It is composed 
 
 * Vucs des Cordillcrcs, folio: pp. 64, 65. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 45 
 
 of two words: the first implying 'reeds,' the other 'hand.' The symbol of reeds, therefore, 
 and the symbol of a hand, convey the sound of the name, Acatla-Potzin." * 
 
 We understand, by the term figurative hieroglyphics, signs which, in their natural 
 forms, are images of objects the ideas of which are to be expressed. 
 
 "On the Egyptian monuments, in a legend which refers to pillars, to edifices, or to 
 sphynges elevated before a temple", the figures of these objects take the place of their names. 
 So in designating the ideas of their gods. They made representations of men invested 
 with just such appearances as the Egyptians supposed the gods to exhibit in the celestial 
 world." f 
 
 This is, in other words, the simplest form of hieroglyphic writing, being mere pictures 
 of objects or events intended to be recorded. It was in common use among the Mexicans, 
 and forms no small proportion of the vestiges of their scriptural remains. 
 
 The third species of hieroglyphic writing is the tropical, or symbolic, which accomplishes 
 in the art of writing thoughts or abstract ideas, what is first done in the art of language, viz: 
 to employ what rhetoricians call tropes, or figures of speech. For instance: "to denote 
 impudence, the Egyptians painted a fly, because this creature, being more frequently than 
 any other driven away by force, still persists in returning. To denote knowledge, they paint 
 the heavens shedding down dew, signifying that, as fallen dew is diffused over all plants, and 
 makes soft and pliable only those which in their own nature are capable of being softened, but 
 upon those which are in their own nature hard, it exerts no influence: so knowledge is diffused 
 in common among all men, but only those who are born with a happy genius seize and imbibe 
 the dew, while those who are destitute of the faculty of genius remain strangers to its influence.";}; 
 
 The Mexicans had also this peculiar method of hieroglyphic inscription, as we learn from 
 the following quotations: " The Mexicans not only represented the simple images of objects, 
 but they also had some characters answering, like the signs of algebraists, for things devoid 
 of figure, or of difficult representation." § 
 
 * Foreign Quart. Rev. XXXV, for Oct. 1838. 
 
 t Stuart on Greppo's Champollion, p. 
 | Stuart on Greppo's Champollion. 
 
 5 Researches on America, by an officer of the army. Bait. 1816. 
 
 M 
 
46 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 Again: "Such as had form or figure, were represented by proper images; and such as 
 had not any, wire represented by characters that signified them; and by this means they figured 
 and writ what they would." * * "They did also write these discourses after their manner 
 by characters and images; and I have seen, for my better satisfaction, the pater noster, ave 
 Maria, and siinbol, or general confession of our faith, written in this manner by the Indians. 
 And. in truth, whosoever shall sec them will wonder thereat; for, to signify these words, I, a 
 sinner, do confess myself, they painted an Indian upon his knees, at a religious man's feet. 
 as one that was confessing himself; and for this, To Ciod most mighty, they painted three 
 faces, with their crowns, like to tho Trinity." * 
 
 Baron Humboldt considers the Mexican paintings as rather corresponding with the hieratic 
 than the hieroglyphic writings of the Egyptians, as found on the rolls of papyrus in the swathings 
 of the mummies, and which may be considered paintings of a mixed kind, because they unite 
 symbolical and isolated characters with the representation of an action. 
 
 It is the opinion of the author that farther investigations and discoveries in deciphering 
 Mexican hieroglyphic paintings will exhibit a close analogy to the Egyptian in the use of two 
 scriptural systems: the one for monumental inscription, the other for the ordinary purposes of 
 record and transmission of information. 
 
 We find the three species of hieroglyphics common to Mexico and Egypt. It is not to 
 
 be expected that the same lines, figures, and marks arc to be discovered in each country. 
 
 An identity of characters would be impossible; as, in Egypt, at least sixty objects might be 
 
 selected by the writer to give the phonetic A. In Mexico sixty others might be enumerated, 
 
 of objects never seen in Egypt, and which yet might be employed to represent the same letter. 
 
 In the lapse, also, of a few generations, particularly of a peoplo constantly driven from their 
 
 homes, and compelled to wander to new scenes, new symbols would be used to represent 
 
 phonetic characters; and they would naturally be selected from objects in their new abodes, 
 
 and which would be familiar to their immediate descendants. Tho author thinks, then, that 
 
 identity of symbols is not to be looked fir; hut that the existence of the same scriptural system 
 
 in both countries is no slight evidence in favor of an early unity of origin. 
 ♦Acosta, L. VI, c. 7. 
 
OP AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 47 
 
 In tracing, then, the ancestry of the Mexicans and Peruvians, by analogy in their hieroglyphic 
 system, where shall we take them but to Egypt and to southern Asia? " We seek in vain, on 
 the elevated plain of central Asia, or farther to the north and the east, for nations who have 
 made use of this hieroglyphic painting, which has been practised in the country of Anahuac 
 ever since the end of the seventh century. The Kamtschadales, the Tongooses, and other 
 tribes of Siberia, described by Stralenbergh, paint figures which represent historical facts. 
 Under every zone we find nations more or less addicted to this kind of painting. But there is 
 a wide distance between a plate covered with certain characters, and those Mexican manuscripts, 
 which are all composed according to a uniform system, and which may be considered as the 
 annals of the empire." * 
 
 * Trans. Hum. Res. by H. M. Williams, vol. 1, p. 168. 
 
48 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 THE ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCE 
 
 Of the origin of this civilized American family in Southern Asia, is of no slight importance 
 On this subject has a flood of light been already thrown by Mons. Bailly, in his Histoire de 
 I'Ancienne Astronomic, Baron Humboldt, and the celebrated French savan, Mons. Jomard. 
 So much, indeed, has been said by them, that the analogies were better quoted from their own 
 writings, than presented in a mere digest. How truly has the intention of the great Creator 
 been borne out by all races of men, when it was declared by Him, " Let there be lights in the 
 firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for 
 Masons, and for days and for years." 
 
 From the earliest ages, we find skill and knowledge in astronomy; and the more we 
 examine, the more we arc surprised at the extent of astronomical science in the earliest history 
 of the world. 
 
 The investigations of Mons. Bailly in the astronomy of the ancients generally, of Mons. 
 Jomard in that of Egypt, and of Baron Humboldt in that of Mexico and South America, 
 present most striking instances of coincidence, not only in their divisions of time, but also in 
 the zodiacal signs. 
 
 The author has selected from these works the most striking analogies, and here presents 
 mem, in a free translation: 
 
 " The civil year of the Aztecs was a solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days. 
 It was divided into eighteen months of twenty days each. To these eighteen months, or three 
 hundred and sixty days, they added five days, to complete the year, and then commenced 
 ;iL r ;iin anoihcr year. 
 
 " The names Tonalpohualli and Ccmpohualilhuitl, which distinguish the civil from the ritual 
 calendar, define plainly their peculiar character. The first of these names means 'account of 
 the sun,' (comptc dti soleil,) in contradistinction to the ritual calendar, called ' an account of 
 the moon,' (romptc de la tune,) or Metzlapolhualli. The second name above given is derived 
 from cempohualli, ' twenty,' and ilhuite, ' a feast.' It has allusion both to the twenty days in 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. " 49 
 
 every month, and to the twenty solemn feasts celebrated in the course of a civil year, in the 
 TeocaUis, or Houses of God. 
 
 "A passage in the History of the Incas, by Garcillasso de la Vega, induced Bailly and 
 Lalande to believe that the Peruvians calculated by cycles of seven days. ' The Peruvians,' 
 says Garcillasso, ' count their months by the moon ; they count their half months by the 
 increase and decrease of the moon, and compute the weeks by quarters, without having any 
 particular names for the week days.' " * 
 
 Acosta differs from Garcillasso in this particular, and Humboldt attributes to him greater 
 weight of authority, on account of his " having composed the first books of his Physical History 
 of the New Continent at Peru;" but his reason for their recognition of the period of seven 
 days is not altogether satisfactory when he says: "It is indebted for its origin to the number 
 of the planets." [Elle doit son origine au nombre des planetes.] To satisfy us on this point, 
 the connexion between the two should be explained. 
 
 Humboldt, however, not recognising the reasons given by Acosta, nor yet admitting that 
 Garcillasso was accurate, says: "After short reflection on the Peruvian calendar, we may 
 perceive that, though the phases of the moon change almost every seven days, the correspondence 
 is not yet exact enough to produce, in a lapse of several consecutive months, an agreement 
 between the cycle of seven days and the phases of the moon. The Peruvians, according to 
 Polo, and many other contemporaneous writers, had years [huata] containing three hundred 
 and sixty days, numbered and calculated on solar observations made day by day at Couzco. 
 The Peruvian year was divided, as is customary in southern Asia, into twelve moons, [guilla,] 
 the synodical revolutions of which end at three hundred and fifty-four days, eight hours, and 
 forty-eight minutes. To correct the lunar year, and make it agree with the solar, they added, 
 according to an ancient custom, eleven days, which, after an edict from the Incas, were 
 distributed among the twelve moons. After this disposal, it is impossible that four equal 
 periods, into which they might have divided the lunar months, could be composed of seven days 
 each, and yet coincide with the phases of the moon. The same historian, whose evidence is 
 cited by Mr. Bailly in support of the opinion that the week of the Hindoos was known by the 
 Peruvians, attests that, in consequence of an ancient law of the Inca Pachachutec, they ought 
 
 * Vues des Cordilleres, folio, Paris, pp. 127, 128. 
 
 N 
 
50 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 to have, in every lunar month, three holidays and market days, [calu.] and that the people 
 were obliged to work, not 6even, but « i ii 1 1 1 consecutive days, taking rest on the ninth." * 
 
 This is. however, wrapped in some obscurity. One inference may be deduced therefrom, 
 and thai of no light weight, viz: that in this regularly returning period, whether of seven or 
 of nine days, a Sabbath was observed — a day of rest was appointed and kept Whence 
 could this custom have derived its origin? What nations do we find with their regularly 
 returning sabbath, other than those who came from the birth-place of the world? The North 
 American Indian knows no sabbath, and ill this instance may be noticed the dissimilarity of 
 the ancient race of America, compared with the Mongolian family which expelled them to 
 Mexico and Peru, from the prairies of the Wabash and Ohio. 
 
 •• Wo see, from what has been said elsewhere, that the Mexican year exhibited, like that 
 of the Egyptians, and that of the new French calendar, the advantage of a division into 
 months of equal duration. The seven complementary days, the epagomenai [ — "n-a^,™"— 
 of the Egyptians, were indicated by the Mexicans under the name of nemontemi, or '■empty.'' " | 
 
 This is no slight analogy, to find the system of intercalation and the number of complementary 
 days identical between Mexico and Egypt. But perhaps a still more striking instance presents 
 itself to us in a comparison of the zodiacal signs of southern Asia and this civilized aboriginal 
 race of America. Baron Humboldt collected and arranged in a tabular form the names of the 
 Mexican hieroglyphic zodiacal signs. They were compiled by him from the various writers 
 of the sixteenth century. From this it appears that a great proportion of the names by which 
 the Mexicans indicated the twenty days of their month, are those of a zodiac used since the 
 remotest antiquity by the inhabitants of eastern Asia. The table to illustrate this is here 
 introduced, viz: 
 
 * Vucs des Cordillcres, p. 129. 
 t Vues des Cordillcres, p. 130. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 
 
 51 
 
 HIEROGLYPHICS 
 
 NACSHATRAS, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 OR 
 
 DAYS OF THE MEXICAN CALENDAR. 
 
 LUNAR HOUSES OF THE HINDOOS. 
 
 Atl, eau, water. 
 
 
 Cipactli, monstre marin, sea mon- 
 ster. 
 
 (The mahara is a sea monster also.) 
 
 Ocelotl, tigre, tiger. 
 
 
 Tochtli, lievre, hare. 
 
 
 Cohuatl, serpent, serpent. 
 
 Serpent, serpent. 
 
 (Acatl, canne,) cane. 
 
 Canne, cane. 
 
 Tecpatl, silex, couteau, knife. 
 
 Rasoir, razor. 
 
 (Ollin, chemin du soleil,) path of 
 the sun. 
 
 Traces of the feet of Vishnu, or 
 the sun. 
 
 Ozonatli, singe, monkey. 
 
 Singe, monkey. 
 
 Quanhtli, oiseau, bird. 
 
 
 Itzcuintli, chien, dog. 
 
 Queue de chien, dog's tail. 
 
 (Calli, maison,) house. 
 
 Maison, house. 
 _ 
 
 As a matter affording some evidence of the course of migration of this ancient race, and 
 which we shall have occasion to notice hereafter, a second table is here inserted, exhibiting 
 die analogy between the zodiac of the Mexicans and that of the Mantchou Tartars. 
 
 ZODIAC OF THE MANTCHOU TARTARS. 
 
 MEXICAN ZODIAC. 
 
 Pars, tigre, tiger. 
 
 Ocelotl, tigre, tiger. 
 
 Taoular, lievre, hare. 
 
 Tochtli, lievre, hare. 
 
 Mogai, serpent, serpent. 
 
 Cohuatl, serpent, serpent. 
 
 Petchi, singe, monkey. 
 
 Ozonatli, singe, monkey. 
 
 Nokai, chien, dog. 
 
 Itzcuintli, chien, dog. 
 
 Tukia, oiseau poule, bird, hen. 
 
 Quanhtli, oiseau, aigle, bird, eagle. 
 
 These quotations we consider very positive evidence of an early identity between the 
 aboriginal race of America and the southern Asiatic and Egyptian family. To conclude the 
 testimony on this point, the following extract of a letter of Mr. Jomard is adduced: 
 
H AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 " I have also recognized in your memoir on the division of time among the Mexican 
 nations, compared with those of Asia, some very striking analogies between the Toltcc characters 
 and institutions observed on the banks of the Nile. Among these analogies there is one which 
 is worthy of attention. It is the use of the vague year of three hundred and sixty-five days, 
 composed of equal months, and of five complementary days, equally employed at Thebes and 
 Mexico, a distance of three thousand hwgnas. It is true that the Egyptians had no intercalation, 
 while the .Mexicans intercalated thirteen days every fifty-two years. Still farther; intercalation was 
 proscribed in Egypt, to such a point that the kings swore, on their accession, never to permit 
 it to be employed during their reign. Notwithstanding this difference, we find a very striking 
 agreement in the length of the duration of the solar year. In reality, the intercalation of the 
 Mexicans being thirteen days on each cycle of fifty-two years, comes to the same thing as that 
 of the Julian calendar, which is one day in four years; and consequently supposes the duration 
 of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five days, six hours. Now such was the length of the 
 year among the Egyptians, since the sothic period was at once one thousand four hundred and 
 sixty solar years, and one thousand four hundred and sixty-one vague years; which was, in 
 some sort, the intercalation of a whole year of three hundred and seventy-five days every one 
 thousand four hundred and sixty years. The property of the sothic period — that of bringing 
 back the seasons and festivals to the same point of the year, after having made them pass 
 successively through every point — is undoubtedly one of the reasons which caused the 
 intercalation to be proscribed, no less than die repugnance of die Egyptians for foreign 
 institutions. 
 
 - Now it is remarkable that the same solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days, six 
 hours, adopted by nations so different, and perhaps still more remote in their state of civilization 
 than in their geographical distance, relates to a real astronomical period, and belongs peculiarly 
 to the Egyptians. This is a point which 31. Tourier will ascertain in his researches on the 
 zodiac of Egypt. No one is more capable of deciding this question, in an astronomical point 
 of view. He alone can elucidate the valuable discoveries which he has made. I shall here 
 observe, that the Persians, who intercalated thirty days every hundred and twenty years; the 
 Chaldeans, who employed the era of Narbonassar; the Romans, who added a day every four 
 years; the Syrians, and almost all the nations who regulated their calendar by the course 
 of the sun. appear to me to have taken from Egypt the notion of a solar year of three hundred 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 53 
 
 days. As to the Mexicans, it would be superfluous to examine how they attained this 
 knowledge. Such a problem would not be soon solved; but the fact of the intercalation of 
 thirteen days every cycle, that is, the use of a year of three hundred and sixty-five days 
 and a quarter, is a proof that it was either borrowed from the Egyptians, or that they had 
 a common origin. It is also to be observed, that the year of the Peruvians is not solar, but 
 regulated according to the course of the moon, as among the Jews, the Greeks, the Macedonians, 
 and the Turks. However, the circumstance of eighteen months of twenty days, instead of 
 twelve months of thirty days, makes a great difference. The Mexicans are the only people 
 who have divided the year in this manner. 
 
 "A second analogy which I have remarked between Mexico and Egypt is, that the 
 number of weeks, or half lunations of thirteen days, comprehended in the Mexican cycle, 
 is the same as that of the years of the sothic period; this number is 1461. You 
 consider such a relation as accidental and fortuitous; but perhaps it might have the 
 same origin as the notion of the length of the year. If, in reality, the year was not 
 of the length of 365 days, 6 hours, that is —■ days, the cycle of 52 years would not 
 contain 5 ^^, or thirteen times 1461 days; which makes 1461 periods of thirteen days." * 
 " A half-civilized people, the Araucans of Chili, have a year (sipantu) which exhibits a 
 ' still greater analogy with the Egyptian year than that of the Aztecs. Three hundred 
 and sixty days are divided into twelve months (ayen) of equal duration, to which are 
 added, at the end of the year, at the winter solstice, (huamathipantu,) five complementary 
 days. The nycthemerse, like those of the Japanese, are divided into twelve hours, 
 (clagantu.") f 
 
 On a review of the evidence thus presented, we notice, first, a close correspondence 
 in the division of the year, month, and week; second, an identity in their zodiacal 
 signs; third, the common use of intercalation. 
 
 Upon the strength of these few quotations, we are willing to base the argument from 
 astronomy. 
 
 * Trans. Hum. Res. vol. 2, p. 224. (By H. M. Williams.) 
 f Do. do. p. 234 Do. 
 
 O 
 
51 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 THE ARCHITECTURAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 The remains of this ancient race which most attract attention, are the tumuli, 
 
 ramparts, ami fossa, which they constructed whilp. dwelling in this region. These 
 
 vary in size and figure: here exhibiting no small knowledge of castrametation, in the 
 
 display of "curtains," "covert ways," &c; and there denoting the well-guarded sacred 
 
 fanes, the " high places," where once the gathering throng assembled either to adore 
 
 the Deity, or perform the last offices for the dead. They are erected without reference 
 
 to any particular level, as sometimes we find one portion resting on an elevated plain 
 
 of interval land, thence running up a declivitous side-hill, and extending some distance 
 
 on its summit. The number and frequency of tumuli through the country have led the 
 
 writer to believe that they have not only been used as the last home of the warrior 
 
 and his family, but that they have served as scopuloi, or beacons, and points of observation, 
 
 connecting the large and extensive castra. There is reason to believe that a map of 
 
 North America, delineating each of these ruins in situ, will exhibit a connexion between 
 
 the various groups of ancient walls, by means of intermediate mounds, a signal on 
 
 which, by fire or otherwise, would transmit with ease and telegraphic despatch, the 
 
 annunciation of hostile approach, or a call for assistance. We find, too, that this was 
 
 a common practice among the ancient Peruvians. " At each quarter of a league, a 
 
 cabin was built upon an eminence, in which five or six active Indians are stationed, 
 
 and more, on extraordinary occasions. They watched perpetually, and one of them, 
 
 having received the verbal message, which was the common mode, though the quipos 
 
 were sometimes used, he ran on to the next station; for it was calculated that a man 
 
 could go a quarter of a league at his full speed. On rebellions, the news was 
 
 communicated by means of fires, which were always in readiness at each post; and 
 
 by this method the Inca could receive intelligence from an immense distance in three 
 
 or four hours." 
 
 * Garcillasso de la Vega, Book VI, chap. 7. 
 

 l-.il.Vv s« 
 
 ('., SA— -v 7 - f 0fi i irtti in- 
 
 >W<irW < w£ Ai \ c. BVB&EBS «. CO . V?s7 •'/?«* ■ '<' 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 55 
 
 The larger castra are near water-courses, at least so far as the observation of 
 the author has extended; and at intervals along the streams are tumuli, which would 
 be visible, one from the other, were the country cleared of its present forest. 
 
 Some locations indicate a judicious selection of soil for cultivation; while others, 
 again, have evidently been chosen merely for convenience to ore, and for manufactures. 
 
 Throughout Ohio and the adjacent States, they are constructed of earth, which, in 
 some instances, is of a different soil from that on which they are placed, and must have 
 been brought a distance of three or four miles. One or two instances, however, may 
 be named, which are exceptions to this general description. 
 
 Not far from Newark, Licking County, and near the Ohio and Erie Canal, stands a large 
 tumulus, built of stone, a right cone in figure, with an altitude of about forty feet, 
 and a base diameter of about one hundred feet. This is the only stone pyramidal 
 edifice north of Mexico. 
 
 In Liberty township, Washington county, Ohio, are yet to be seen twenty or thirty 
 rude furnaces, built of stone, with hearths of clay, containing pieces of stone-coal and 
 cinders, perhaps used in smelting ore. Large trees are still growing on them, and 
 attest their age. They stand in the midst of a rich body of iron ore, and in a wild, 
 hilly, and rough part of the country, better adapted to manufactures than to agriculture. 
 
 These ancient structures are traced through North America to Peru. The residence 
 of the Inca, on the Cordillera of Assuay, now forming part of the ruins of the ancient 
 city of Chulucanas, is surrounded by terraces, ramparts, &c. similar to our own. 
 
 In the drawing on the opposite page, will be at once recognised a specimen of 
 our ancient remains, viz: an elevated terrace, two ramparts, and two large mounds. 
 It exhibits the ground plan of a splendid building, used as the receptacle of the remains 
 of the princes of Tzapoteck, a powerful Mexican tribe. It is called the palace of 
 Mitla, a contraction of the word " Miguitlan," which signifies, " place of desolation." 
 
 In North America, the sepulchres of the ancient race are the tumuli of the country. 
 In Peru, they are the same. " The Indians, having laid a body, without burial, upon 
 the ground, environed it with a rude arch of stones, or bricks, and earth was thrown 
 upon it, as a tumulus, which they call guaca. In general, they are eight or ten toises 
 high, and about twenty long, and the breadth rather less; but some are larger. They 
 
56 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 are in shape not precisely pyramidal, but more like hillocks. The plains near Cayambe 
 are covered with them; one of their principal temples having been there, where the 
 kings and caciques of duito were buried." * 
 
 In the North American tumuli, various articles are found buried with the occupant, 
 such as idols, clay masks, mica, stone axes, silver and copper rings, and rosaries. 
 Precisely similar articles are discovered in the sepulchres of Mexico and Peru. 
 
 "In the tombs of Siberia, and the deserts which border it southward, are found 
 thousands of cast idols of gold, silver, copper, tin, and brass. Some of the tombs are 
 of earth, and raised as high as houses, and in such numbers upon the plain, that, at 
 a distance, they appear like a ridge of hills." f 
 
 The simple tumuli common to the civilized aborigines of America and of southern 
 Asia, were the earliest pyramidal edifices. In process of time, the ruling powers, 
 ambitious of distinction, caused more permanent edifices to be reared, to serve as the 
 last home of themselves and families, and to form also the temples wherein their manes 
 might be invoked, and propitiatory sacrifices be offered to the Deity. Thus we find 
 the simple tumulus in Egypt grown into a massive stone pyramid, the receptacle of the 
 royal sarcophagi. In Mexico and Peru, we find the imperial sepulchre enclosed in 
 pyramids and temples no way inferior to the Egyptian. 
 
 "Among those swarms of nations which, from the seventh to the twelfth century 
 of the christian era, successively inhabited the country of Mexico, five are enumerated, 
 who, notwithstanding their political divisions, spoke the same language, followed the same 
 worship, and built pyramidical edifices which they regarded as the houses of their 
 gods." J 
 
 The most ancient pyramids of the Mexicans are those of Teotlihuacan, and are 
 said to have been built by the Toltec race. 
 
 " The group of pyramids of Teotlihuacan is eight leagues north-east from Mexico, 
 in a plain called Micoatl, or the "Path of the Dead." There are two large ones 
 dedicated to the sun, (Tonitiuh,) and to the moon, (Metzli;) they are surrounded by 
 several hundreds of small pyramids, which form streets, in exact lines from north to south. 
 
 * Ulloa, vol. 1, p. 366. Gent.'s Mag. vol. XXII, p. 210. 
 | Ranking 1 s Conquest of Peru, p. 238. 
 | Trans. ~Vv.es des Cordillcres. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 57 
 
 and from east to west. One is fifty-five, the other forty-four metres in perpendicular 
 height. The basis of the first is two hundred and eight metres in length. It is, 
 according to Mr. Oteyza's measurement, made in 1803, higher than the Myceninus, the 
 third of the great pyramids of Geiza, in Egypt; and the length of the base is nearly 
 equal to that of the Cephren. The small ones are nine or ten metres high, and are 
 said to be burial places of the chiefs of the tribes. The two large ones had four 
 principal stories, each subdivided into steps. The nucleus is composed of clay mixed 
 with small stones, and incased by a thick wall of porous amygdaloid. This construction 
 recalls to mind that of one of the Egyptian pyramids of Sakhara, which has six 
 stories, and which, according to Pocpcke, is a mass of pebbles and yellow mortar, 
 covered on the outside with rough stones." * 
 
 The pyramids of Dgizeh, in Egypt, it will be borne in mind, are also surrounded 
 by smaller edifices in regular order, and closely correspond in arrangement to what 
 has been here described. 
 
 "The greatest, most ancient, and most celebrated of the pyramidal monuments of 
 Anahuac is the teocalli of Cholula. At a distance it has the aspect of a natural hill 
 covered with vegetation. It has four stories, all of equal height. It appears to have 
 been constructed exactly in the direction of the four cardinal points. The base of 
 this pyramid is twice as broad as that of the Cheops in Egypt, but its height is very 
 little more than that of Mycerinus. On comparing the dimensions of the House of 
 the Sun, in Peru, with those of the pyramid of Cholula, we see that the people who 
 constructed these remarkable monuments intended to give them the same height, but 
 with bases of length in proportion of one to two. The pyramid of Cholula is built 
 of unburnt brick, alternating with layers of clay." f 
 
 This edifice, it would appear, closely corresponds with the great temple of Bel, or 
 Belus, at Babylon, as described by Herodotus. "It is a square building, each side of 
 which is of the length of two furlongs. In the midst, a tower rises, of the solid depth 
 or height of one furlong, on which, resting as a base, seven other turrets are built in 
 regular succession. The ascent on the outside, which (winding from the ground) is 
 
 * Ranking's Conquest of Peru, p. 356. p 
 
 * Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne. 
 
58 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 continued to the highest tower; and in the middle of the whole structure there is a 
 convenient resting place." * 
 
 A strong resemblance to this structure may be also found in the Mexican temple, 
 of which we have the following d • rijiiion, viz: 
 
 '•To the south-east of the city of Cuernavaca, (the ancient Quahnahuac,) on the 
 western declivity of the Cordillera of Anahuac, in that happy region designated by the 
 inhabitants under the name of ' tierra tcniplada,' (temperate region,) because it is the 
 reign of perpetual spring, rises an insulated hill, which, according to the barometrical 
 measurement of 31. Alzate, is one hundred and seven metres high. The Indians call 
 it, in the Aztec dialect, ' Xochicalco,' or the ' House of Flowers.' The hill of Xochicalco 
 is a mass of rocks, to which the hand of man has given a regular conic form, and 
 which is divided into five stories or terraces, each of which is covered with masonry. 
 These terraces are nearly twenty metres in perpendicular height, but narrow towards the 
 top, as in the teocallis, or Aztec pyramids, the summit of which was decorated with 
 an altar. The hill is surrounded by a deep and very broad 4 ditch, so that the whole 
 entrenchment is nearly four thousand metres in circumference. The summit of the hill 
 of Xochicalco is an oblong platform, seventy-two metres from north to south, ninety-six 
 metres from east to west. This platform is encircled by a wall of hewn stone, more 
 than two metres high, which served as a defence for the combatants. In the centre 
 of this spacious military square, we find the remains of a pyramidical monument, which 
 had five stories, the form of which resembled the teocallis we have already described. 
 Among the hieroglvphical ornaments of the pyramid of Xochicalco, we distinguish heads 
 of crocodiles spouting water, and figures of men sitting cross-legged, according to the 
 custom of the several nations of Asia." t 
 
 From this may we not learn the intention of the embankment around the large 
 tumuli of North America: for instance, at Circleville and 3Iarietta? And do we not 
 clearly see that this race continued the same manner of constructing their " high places" 
 in Mexico and Peru, with the improvements incident to their permanent location there? 
 
 * Herodotus, book I, Clio, cap. CLXXXI. 
 
 t Trans. Hum. Res. by II. M. Williams, vol. I, pp. 108, 109. 
 
OP AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 59 
 
 Stone had taken the place of their earthen tumuli, yet the defences were still erected 
 around them, for protection from farther predatory incursions of their northern enemies. 
 
 In the plan before given of the ruins of Mitla, the distribution of the apartments 
 bears a striking analogy to what has been remarked in the monuments of Upper 
 Egypt, as drawn by Denon and the savans of the Institute of Cairo. Nay, the building 
 itself is in the form of the Egyptian Tau. 
 
 We find one feature common to the architectural genius of these races, which is 
 to be discovered nowhere else. We allude to the surprising mechanical power they must 
 have employed in constructing their works of massive masonry, such as the present 
 race of man has attempted in vain to move. Travelers in Egypt invariably are filled 
 with amazement at the stupendous blocks of stone with which the pyramids, temples, 
 and tombs are constructed, and the size of the obelisks and monuments yet remaining. 
 In Peru the same is observed. 
 
 " In the time of Calla Cunchuy, an effort was made which surpasses human belief; 
 it was the removing the monstrous rock, called the wearied stone, which was brought 
 from the mountain. About twenty thousand natives dragged it along with cables. In 
 letting it down a hill, they could not keep their hold, and it fell and crushed three 
 or four thousand men. After this, it was dragged by main force to the place where 
 it now is seen; but the civil war of Atahualpa, and the conquest, put an end to every 
 thing, without distinction. The Indians say that this stone wept blood at not reaching 
 its destined position in the fortress of Couzco." * 
 
 " The walls of the palace of the Incas of Quito, named Callo, show the dignity 
 and magnificence of the princes. You enter through a passage five or six toises long, 
 into a court, on three sides of which is a spacious saloon, each consisting of several 
 compartments. Behind that which faces the entrance, are several small office. This 
 palace is entirely of stone, almost black, and as hard as flint, well cut, and joined 
 so close that the point of a knife cannot be put between them; but no cement is 
 perceivable." f 
 
 " On a mountain north of Cuzco is the famous fort, or wall, of free-stone, some 
 
 * Garcillasso de la Vega, vol. II, p. 255. 
 | Ulloa, vol. I, p. 371. 
 
60 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 of such prodigious dimensions that human reason is astonished how they could be 
 brought thither and fitted so neatly that the joinings are not seen without narrow 
 inspection. The design appears to have been to inclose the whole mountain, as a 
 defence; it was built by the first Inca, Mango." * 
 
 Another feature presents great analogy. Their buildings, particularly the sacred 
 houses, were covered with hieroglyphics. Each race, Egyptian, Mexican, and Peruvian, 
 recorded the deeds of their gods upon the walls of their temples. Nay, science was 
 also sculptured thereon in both countries, in the form of zodiacs and planispheres, 
 corresponding even in signs. 
 
 "In the sanctuaries of Palenque are found sculptured representations of idols which 
 resemble the most ancient gods, both of Egypt and Syria; planispheres and zodiacs 
 exist, which exhibit a superior astronomical and chronological system to that which was 
 possessed by the Egyptians." f 
 
 In the ruin of Mitla, the ground plan of which has been given, the facade of 
 the building is covered with a very beautiful mat work, or basket scroll, which is a 
 characteristic ornament of all the Toltecan monuments, which is often found in the 
 sepulchral chambers of this people, and which Rosellini, by a singular coincidence, 
 found in those of Egypt. 
 
 Another architectural peculiarity may perhaps point out a passage in the darkest 
 history of these people. Vega, in his narration of the conquests of the Incas, says 
 that Mayta Capac, "to shorten his march, made a bridge over the great river Apurimac, 
 of withes twisted together into five cables as thick as a man's body, and stretched them 
 from side to side, so that it hung in the air, two hundred paces long, and more than 
 two yards broad. Droves of loaded mules and cattle could pass over it. It is the 
 admiration of posterity." J From Clavigero we learn they had the same kind of 
 bridges in Mexico. § Now we are also informed, " these bridges are common in 
 Thibet and Bootan." || Hereafter we shall have occasion to notice this. 
 
 * Ulloa, vol. n, p. 105. 
 
 t Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XXXV, for October, 1836. 
 
 t Vega, book HI, chap. 7. 
 
 5 Clavigero, vol. I, p. 389. 
 
 || Ranking's Conquest of Peru, p. 72. 
 
I X . 
 
 I* 1 1 1 1 t •, Datnyn 
 
 {'. /",•„, /■} ,/.j'/,V„-r/,s,</ 
 
 'A/... . . \ i: m uur.sfc b »'o . W27'3ZtAr« ■'//■ 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 61 
 
 While on the subject of architecture, useful and decorative, it were well to present 
 the drawing of what Baron Humboldt calls the statue of an Aztec priestess; but 
 which, from its having been taken from the ruins of the celebrated teocalli of 
 Tenochtitlan, destroyed by Cortez on the "disastrous night," the author imagines is 
 
 the model of an inferior divinity. Be it either, its general appearance strongly calls, to 
 mind the " Magna Mater Isis" of the Egyptian mythology. 
 
 On a review, then, of the architectural evidence, we trace identity between the 
 Mexicans and Peruvians, and the Egyptians, in 
 
 1. The coincidence of pyramidal sarcophagi and temples, and their peculiar structure. 
 
 2. The possession of the same architectural and mechanical genius, which enabled 
 them to remove masses which our mechanical skill has not attained to. 
 
 3. The peculiarity of hieroglyphic inscription, and zodiacal and planispheric sculpture 
 in their sacred buildings. 
 
 4. An identity of architectural sepulchral decoration. 
 
 5. An analogous construction of bridges. 
 
 6. A singular analogy in the specimen given of their sculpture. 
 
 One more topic remains for investigation, in our tracing the origin of the Mexicans 
 and Peruvians by analogy, which is the evidence to be derived from their manners 
 and customs. q 
 
62 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 The author, in reading an essay on the origin of the antiquities of America, before 
 the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, presented two large specimens of the 
 " pyrula perversa," in a tolerably good state of preservation. These shells are frequently 
 found in and near the ancient remains, particularly where there may be a neighboring 
 spring of water. This shell is not to be found on the coasts of North or South 
 America, with the exception of some very small specimens, discovered by M. Say, on 
 the Gulf of Mexico, the largest of which was not exceeding two inches in length. 
 The specimens taken from the tumuli of the ancient race, vary from six to fourteen 
 inches in length. The only locality where these specimens . abound at present, the 
 author is informed, is on the coast of Hindostan, where they arc used even to this 
 day by the natives in their religious ceremonies. The shells alluded to, in this event, 
 afford no slight evidence of a primitive departure from southern Asia. 
 
 A custom peculiar to these ancient families is to be found in the embalming of 
 their illustrious dead. 
 
 '•In the year 1560, in the house of the licentiate, Paul Ondegardo, I saw five 
 bodies of the Incas, three men and two women. They had, till now, been concealed 
 from the Spaniards. The first was that of the king, Viracocha, who, by his snow-white 
 hair, appeared to have been very aged. The next was his nephew, the great Tupac 
 Yupanqui; and the third was Huayna Capac. The fourth was Mama Runtu, Queen 
 of Viracocha, and the other was the body of Coya Mama Oello, mother of Huayna 
 Capac. 
 
 '•These corpses were so perfect that not a hair of the head, or of an eyebrow, was 
 wanting. They were in such dresses as they wore when living, without any other mark 
 of royalty than the Llantu on the head. They were seated in the manner of Indians, 
 with the hands across upon the breast, and their eyes towards the earth. They were 
 in such good preservation that they appeared almost as if alive; but the art by which 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. C3 
 
 they were embalmed is lost. I touched one of the fingers of Huayna Capac, and 
 found it as hard as wood." * 
 
 In what other family than the southern Asiatic shall we look for this last memento 
 
 of respect to the illustrious dead? Egypt alone, in the old continent, has preserved 
 
 her greatest men with sacred care. Peru, in the New World, we find, has done the 
 same. 
 
 It is told by Vega, that in Peru, "lions, tigers, serpents, and toads, were made 
 use of for the punishment of criminals. At the time when I left Cuzco, the places 
 where the serpents, lions, (puma,) tigers, (jaguar,) and other animals had been kept, 
 were still shown; one was near the citadel, and the other behind the convent of 
 St. Dominic." f 
 
 " The Emperors of Hindostan caused criminals to be put to death by elephants, 
 lions, &c. The same was the custom in Peru." % 
 
 "The Amantas, or philosophers, composed comedies and tragedies, which were 
 performed before the emperors and courtiers by gentlemen, sons of governors, &c. They 
 represented the triumphs and magnificence of their lncas, and the events of human fife 
 and society, with 'sententious gravity and propriety. 
 
 " They also composed short ballads on love, and others on the virtues and actions 
 of their ancestors." § 
 
 " In the evening, the Emperor of China gave the lords of the court a comedy. 
 Only three or four actors were good. The plays are mostly serious. They are like 
 the histories of some illustrious persons, interspersed with fable. They never utter a 
 loose expression, or say any thing to offend a modest ear." || 
 
 " The Mexicans had similar dramatic representations." \ 
 
 * Garcillasso de la Vega, book V, chap. 29; book HI, chap. 20. 
 
 t Vega, book V, chap. 10. 
 
 \ Ranking. Note to p. 207, extracted from "Wars and Sports," chap. Vffl, p. 269. 
 
 { Vega, book II, chap. XXVH. 
 
 || Du Halde, vol. II, p. 343. 
 
 T Clavigero, vol, I, p. 396. 
 
61 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 "The. Indians of Peru had such fear of an eclipse, thai as soon as it began they 
 made a terrible noise with trumpets, horns, atabales, and drums; besides which, they 
 tied up dogs and beat them severely, that they might, by their barking, cause tho 
 moon to be roused from the sufferings it was undergoing from its present condition." * 
 
 M In China, as soon as tho sun or moon begins to be darkened, they all throw 
 themselves on their knees, and knock their foreheads against the earth. A frightful 
 noise of drums and cymbals is immediately heard throughout the whole city. The 
 Chinese think that, by such a horrid din, they assist the suffering luminary, and prevent 
 it from being devoured by the celestial dragon. Although the literati, and every person 
 possessed of the least knowledge, at present, know that eclipses are natural events, they 
 still continue these ceremonies, in consequence of that attachment to national customs 
 which these people have always preserved." t 
 
 We learn from Clavigero, that in the war of Mixtccapan, under Montezuma, " the 
 slaughter was great; six thousand two hundred prisoners were sacrificed, and their skulls 
 were piled in the edifice Quaxicalco, now consecrated for their preservation." J 
 
 In 1 526, we learn that the Emperor Baber, in Hindostan, " ordered a pyramid 
 to be built which was stuck round with the heads of the slain." § 
 
 » v 
 
 Vega, book II, chap. 23. 
 t Grosior's China, vol. II, p. 438. 
 t Clavigoro, vol. I, p. 184. 
 } Dow, vol. II, p. 130. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 65 
 
 Let us now take a brief review of the analogical evidence of an identity of 
 the family of Mexico and Peru with that of Hindostan or Egypt, to simplify which we 
 name the several coincidences, which have been specified, in their proper order. 
 I. Philological. The various analogies in language. 
 II. Anatomical. The peculiar craniological formation common to those countries, as 
 
 asserted by Dr. Warren. 
 TTT . Mythological. 1. The existence of two peculiar modes of worship, addressed to 
 two deities: one sanguinary, and the other peaceful, corresponding with Vishnu 
 and Siva. 
 
 2. The identity of the deity Rama, his wife, Sita, and the festival Rama Sitoa. 
 
 3. The prevalence of the doctrine of the metempsychosis. 
 
 4. The painting delineating the death of Abel. 
 
 5. The four cataclysms of the world, from which we learn their traditions of events 
 
 in early Asiatic history. 
 IV. Hieroglyphic 1. The use of quipos, or knotted cords. 
 
 2. The use o'f the three peculiar systems of hieroglyphic writing of the Egyptians. 
 V. Astronomical. 1. Identity in the division of the year, month, and week; and 
 the calculations thereof. 
 2. Identity in the use of intercalary days. 
 '3. Identity in zodiacal signs. 
 VI. Architectural. 1. Identity in sepulchral tumuli. 
 
 2. Identity in pyramidal temples. 
 
 3. In the uses of these temples. 
 
 4. In the mechanical power which enabled them to move masses that no other 
 
 races have ever accomplished. 
 
 5. Their use of hieroglyphic sculpture on all their sacred buildings. 
 
 6. Similarity in zodiacal and planispheric carvings. 
 
 7. Identity in sepulchral ornaments. 
 
 R 
 
06 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 8. The peculiar construction of bridges. 
 !). The statue of the Mexican Deity. 
 VII. MvNNi:its and CC8TOH& 1. The use of pyrula perversa in religious or other rites. 
 
 2. Identity in practice of embalming and preservation of the royal corpses. 
 
 3. Identity in punishment l>y wild animals. 
 
 4. Coincidence in the monuments of victory, built and ornamented by the skulls 
 
 of the slain. 
 
 5. Identity in the existence of four castes. (See postea.) 
 
 It will doubtless be noticed that these coincidences at one time are drawn from 
 Egypt, at another, from Hindostan. The sequel will show that both of these nations 
 were peopled by one family, and will satisfactorily account for their being alluded to 
 indiscriminately in the preceding argument. To make this a little more certain, the 
 author here introduces one or two paragraphs from a standard writer. 
 
 " The temples of Nubia exhibit the same features, whether as to style of architecture 
 or the form of worship which must have been practised in them, with the similar 
 buildings which have been recently examined in the neighborhood of Bombay. In both 
 cases they consist of vast excavations, hewn out in the solid body of a hill or mountain, 
 and are decorated with huge figures which indicate the same powers of nature, or serve 
 as emblems to denote the same qualities in the ruling spirits of the universe. 
 
 "The sepoys who joined the British army in Egypt, under Lord Hutchinson, 
 imagined that they found their own temples in the ruins of Dcndera, and were greatly 
 exasperated at the natives for their neglect of the ancient deities, whose images 
 are still preserved. So strongly, indeed, were they impressed with this identity, that 
 they proceeded to perform their devotions with all the ceremonies practised in their own 
 land. There is a resemblance, too, in the minor instruments of their superstition, the 
 lotus, the linguam. and the serpent, which can hardly be regarded as accidental; but 
 it is no doubt in the immense extent, the gigantic plan, the vast conception, which 
 appear in all their sacred buildings, that we most readily discover the influence of tho 
 same lofty genius, and the endeavor to accomplish the same mighty object. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 67 
 
 " But the most striking point of resemblance between the inhabitants of Egypt and 
 India, is the institution of castes — that singular arrangement which places an insuperable 
 barrier between different orders of men in the same country, and renders their respective 
 honors, toils, and degradation strictly hereditary and permanent. In allusion to the four 
 classes into which the natives are divided, the Hindoos maintain that, of their god, 
 Nara Yana, the mouth became a priest, the arm was made a soldier, the thigh was 
 transformed into a husbandman, and from his feet sprung the servile multitude. The 
 narrative of Herodotus bears evidence to the same institution at an early period among 
 the Egyptians, and his statement is confirmed by Diodorus Siculus." * 
 
 The author ought by no means to omit to state that precisely the same division 
 of caste prevailed among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. 
 
 * Russell's Modern Egypt. Int'n, p. 23. 
 
AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 We now enter on the most difficult, yet most interesting part of our subject — the 
 endeavor to trace the origin and history of the aboriginal race of America, 
 
 We are informed by perhaps the most learned of mythological antiquarians, that 
 the place where mankind first resided, after the flood, was undoubtedly the region of 
 the Minyae, at the bottom of 3Iount Baris, or Luban, which was the Ararat of Moses.* 
 These mountains, on which the ark rested, are in Armenia; and the plains in their 
 neighborhood were the places where Noah and his family dwelt, immediately after they 
 left the ark, and where they procured their first subsistence by tilling tho ground and 
 increasing their herds of cattle, f The holy scriptures tell us that as men multiplied 
 and became very numerous, it pleased the Almighty to allot to the various families 
 different regions, to which they were to retire; and in the days of Peleg, they accordingly 
 did remove, and betake themselves to their different departments. An impulsive obedience 
 to the Almighty's distribution seems to have pervaded all except the house of Chus, 
 or Cush. The sons of Chus seem to have gone off in a disorderly manner, and having 
 for a long time roved eastward, they at last changed their direction, and came to the 
 plains of Shinar. Here they seized upon the particular region which had fallen to the 
 lot of Assur. Him they violently ejected, and compelled to retreat to the higher regions 
 of Mesopotamia. Under the arch rebel, Nimrod, the Cuthites seem to have increased 
 greatly in strength and numbers, and to have formed a plan for a mighty empire. 
 " The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Caluch, in 
 the land of Shinar. And that out of the land he went forth to Assyria, and builded 
 Nineveh, and the city of Rchoboth, and Calah, and Rhesen between Nineveh and 
 Caleh; the same is a great city." J 
 
 Here, then, we find them building up an immense empire. " People of other 
 families flocked in unto them; and many of the line of Shem put themselves under 
 
 * Bryant. Anc. Myth. vol. IV, p. 28. 
 
 t Remains of Japhct, p. 10. 
 
 } Genesis, chap. X. v. 10. 11. 12. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 69 
 
 their dominion. They were probably captivated with their plausible refinements in 
 religion, and no less seduced by their ingenuity, and by the arts which they introduced. 
 For they must certainly be esteemed great in science, if we consider the times in 
 which they lived. The tower of Babel, which their imperious leader had erected, 
 seems to have been both a temple and a landmark, from which they had formed a 
 resolution never to recede. It therefore seemed good to Divine Providence to put a 
 stop to this growing confederacy, and, as they had refused to retire regularly, to force 
 them by judgments to flee away, and to scatter them into different parts." * 
 
 Chus, or Cush, was also called Cuth, and his posterity Cuthians, or Cuthites. 
 This name, in process of time, received the prefix of the Greek 2, and they were then 
 termed "s^s**" or Scythians. The countries which they conquered frequently assumed 
 the name of Scythia, no matter what had been their previous appellations. "Scytharum 
 nomine hoc loco per antiquos Euxini Maris accolas intelligimus, quocunque nomine 
 venirint. Cimmerios illic Homerus collocavit, hos a Scythis Herodotus distinxit." t 
 
 We learn from Epiphanius, that "those nations which reach southward from 
 that part of the world where the two great continents of Europe and Asia incline 
 to each other, and are connected, were universally styled "2;y/0<u» according to an 
 appellation of long standing. These were of that family who, of old, erected the great 
 tower, [of Babel,] and who built the city of Babylon." J We thus learn, both from 
 profane history and holy writ, the extent of the splendid empire founded by Nimrod, 
 the son of Cush, who not only built the cities of the plain of Shinar, but founded the 
 ancient Scythian Empire. This empire must have been truly, learned in science and art. 
 Their mechanical skill and power must have been very great, as we may ascertain from 
 their vast remains, as also from the pages of inspiration, which tell us of the mighty Babylon. 
 Sir William Jones, after a long examination of the various nations dwelling in southern 
 Asia, and their early history, uses these words in his conclusion: "Thus it has been 
 proved, by clear evidence and plain reasoning, that a powerful monarchy was established 
 in Iran long before the Assyrian or Pishdadi government; that it was in truth a Hindu 
 
 * Bryant. Anc. Myth. 4to. Vol. HI, p. 262. 
 
 | Acta Berolinonsia, p. 5. 
 
 a 
 t Epiphanius adversus Ha3res, 1. 1, p. 6. 
 
70 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 monarchv — tliouirh if any choose to call it Cusean. Cusdean, or Scythian, we shall not 
 enter into a debate on names: that it subsisted many centuries, and that its history has 
 been engrafted on that of the Hindoos, who founded the monarchies of Ayodhya and 
 Indraprestha." * Again: in speaking of this same empire, alluding to its advancement 
 in science and art. he >ay<: •■ We. may therefore hold this proposition firmly established, 
 that Iran, or Persia in its largest sense, was the true centre of population, of 
 knowledge, <<f languages, and of arts: which, instead of traveling westward only, as it 
 
 ' d fancifully supposed, or eastward, as ought with equal reason have been 
 asserted, were expanded in all directions, to all regions of the world in which the Hindu 
 race had settled, under various denominations." + The holy writings declare explicitly 
 the manner in which this expansion was produced: -And they said one to another, 
 go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, 
 and slime had they for mortar. And they said, go to, let us budd us a city, and a 
 tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be 
 scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see 
 the city and the tower which the children of men budded. And the Lord said, 
 behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; 
 and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. 
 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand 
 one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face 
 of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it 
 called Babel; because the I/ird did there confound the language of all the earth; and 
 from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." f 
 
 To this truth even profane historians bear witness, and show that it was the same 
 race of whom we have been speaking, that thus met the signal punishment of Almighty 
 God. 
 
 Eupolemus says, that "the city of Babel was first founded, and afterwards the 
 celebrated tower; both which were built by some of those people who had escaped the 
 
 * Sir William Jones 1 Works, vol. I, p. 92. 
 
 t Ibidem, vol. I, p. 93. 
 
 } Gene?is, crnp. XI. v. 3 to 9, inclusive. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 71 
 
 deluge. fiiraj h *i/tsc Tiya.iT*;. They were ihe same who, in after times, were recorded 
 
 under the character of giants. The tower was at length, by the hand of the Almighty, 
 ruined, and these giants were scattered over the whole earth. * 
 
 "Abydenus, in his Assyrian annals, alludes to the insurrection of the sons of Chus, 
 and to their great impiety. He also mentions the building of the tower, and confusion 
 of tongues; and says that the tower, analogous to the words of scripture, was carried 
 up to heaven; but that the gods ruined it by storms and whirlwinds, and frustrated the 
 purpose for which it was designed, and overthrew it upon the heads of those who 
 were employed in the work; that the ruins of it were called Babylon. Before this, there 
 was but one language subsisting among men; but now they had, m^ejmv <j>»w, a manifold 
 sound, or utterance. A war soon after ensued between Cronus and Titan. He repeats 
 that the particular spot where the tower stood was in his time called Babylon. It 
 was so called, he says, from the confusion of tongues and variation of dialect: for in 
 the Hebrew language, such confusion is termed Babel, f 
 
 " Upon this general dispersion, the country about Babel was entirely evacuated. 
 A very large body of the fugitives betook themselves to Egypt, and are commemorated 
 under the name of ' the Shepherds.' Some of them went no farther than Shinar, a 
 city which lay between Nineveh and Babylon, to the north of the region which they 
 had quitted. Others came into Syria and Canaan, and into the Arabian provinces 
 which bordered on those countries. Those who fled to Shinar, resided there some time; 
 but being in the vicinity of E3am and Nineveh, they raised the jealousy of the sons 
 of Ashur and the Elamites, who made a confederacy against them, and after a dispute 
 of some time, drove them from their neighborhood; and not contented with this, they 
 carried their arms still farther, and invaded all those of the line of Ham westward, 
 as far as the confines of Egypt. This was the first part of the great Titanic war, 
 
 * " Eu;ro\i«oo Si iv tcJ ttipi louSxjcoy t»? As-crygi*? <j>jjs7, 7ro\rv BuCuxav-J. TPtorov fxiv xrurQayzt Cttj rw StzaflejTuv sk too xirxxtoo-ptw uvu 
 Si cujtov; Tlyzyr*.;. OlKoSsuuv Si tov itrpoupivcy Tlvpyoy, 7rirovra; Si tcctoo utto th? too ©e;u m^yuxcj touc Ttyavrct; SiaLTTrajnwdu n±b' cxxv T»v yny. ,y 
 
 Apud. Euseb. Preup. L. IX. p. -116. 
 
 t "EvTi Si it \eyzu<ri touc Trpwrcu; ix. yn; etva-^^oyra.; pa>^» t£ xzt juey£a %awo-$ivt±;, xvu Sn S'saiv x*Tsc<pgGVH0wm? ctfAiiycvAs eiv=u, 7rvp^m tvpjtw i]\iCxtm 
 allptrt, tvx yvv Ba€y\ov anr, v.Sa ts ettrrov uvzl too ovgzvw xzl rov; M/ipw; SiclM fixBlivra.; avJLT^ut ttiqi AvratTi to /uh^zw/ucl' too Sht*. ipiiTtzL \eyur8aj 
 BaCvkwa. Tito; Si ovtac ofjuyhtofmv; ix. S-aaiv 7ro\uSpcvv qwjtiv £V£.'»ao"9*/. M&ra. Si Kgov&? xzi Ttrml <rvFrn<rsu Troxijuov. O' Si tcttc;, ev i Trup^yw (£x.cS;/xno-a.v t 
 tut BjCi/Xot xixutsu, <f;» tot trvyxvtm tou iripi tot Skthwrm 5rgarr»v tHtgyouc. 'ECgsre; y±^ tot rvyxurn Ba.G&. xttcutr;." — Euseb. Chron. p. 13. 
 
72 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 in which the king of Elam was principal. We are informed by Moses, that they 
 served him twelve years, and in the thirteenth they rebelled; and in the fourteenth 
 year the king of Elam attacked them, in conjunction with the kings of Aram, Ashur, 
 and Shinar; for Shinar was now regained, and in the hands of the Shcmites." * 
 
 The extent of the dissemination of this family of Cush may bo also estimated 
 from their various appellations, x*t*ju, ajiTk, n#rru, ejuSjcuu, aAutk,) ikCm, a/^,*™, x*a/*«, all of which 
 names are given them by early writers. The region between the Tigris and tho 
 Euphrates was their original home, and was called Chusdim, or Chaldea. One branch 
 of this race extended its conquest eastward, invading and conquering Elam, which 
 comprehended Susiana and Chusistan, now the Persian empire. Thence they descended 
 the Tigris, advanced to India, obtained possession of the navigation of the Indus, and 
 made themselves masters of Hindostan, which they peopled. By their hands were 
 constructed the celebrated mountain temples, yet found in that country, and which bear 
 so close an analogy to those built by their brethren in Egypt. 
 
 To Mizraim, the brother of Cush, seems to have been allotted the land of Egypt, 
 and thither his descendants appear to have retired a long time before the destruction 
 of Babel. They were attended by their brethren, the sons of Phut. They had no 
 share in the rebellion of the Cuthites, nor in the Titanic war which ensued. The 
 country of which they were seized, was that which, in after times, had the name of 
 Upper Egypt. They called it the land of Mezor, and the land of Cham, from their 
 two chief ancestors, which the Greeks rendered Mezora and Chamia. f 
 
 " The Titanic brood, the Cuthites, being driven from Babylonia, fled to different 
 parts, and one very large body of them betook themselves to Egypt. Eupolemus speaks 
 of their dispersion, and calls them giants. — TUmm tt t*t* (t« m,^.*) vm, w t* em in$>««, toi* r*y=u,T« 
 twrr^nu xaX ;*»? -m yn. When the tower of Babel was, by the hand of Heaven, overthrown, 
 the giants were scattered over the face of the earth. We may perceive, from what 
 has preceded, that they were a knowing and experienced people, of a family which 
 had been long engaged in opposition, and tried in some severe conflicts. As they had 
 maintained themselves by a grand confederacy, they knew how to obey, and were 
 
 * Bryant. Anc. Myth. 4to, vol. IE, pp. 262, 263. 
 t Ibidem, vol. Ill, p. 233. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 73 
 
 sensible of the advantages of being under one head. It is, then, no wonder that a 
 people, well disciplined and united, should at once get the sovereignty over a nation 
 so rude and unexperienced as the Mizraim. They took Memphis with ease, which was 
 then the frontier town in Egypt. This they held solely to themselves, and afterwards 
 overran the whole region above, and kept it in subjection. Manetho might therefore 
 very truly say, r <Jku^ni«^<iw. — They seized the country without the least 
 opposition; not a single battle was hazarded. There are many fragments of ancient 
 history which mention the coming of the Cuthites from Babylonia into the land of 
 Mizraim, and the country changing its name. An account of this sort is to be found 
 in Suidas. He tells us that Rameses, the son of Belus, (of Babylonia,) who was the 
 son of Teuth, came into the region called Mestrsea, and gained the sovereignty over 
 the people of the country. He was the person whom they afterwards called iEgyptus, 
 and the region was denominated from him. Others say that it was Sethos; others 
 that it was Belus, who was called iEgyptus; and that from him the country had its 
 
 name. — "Bums <W JAi\ctfi7tofsL; ^uiwa^svo? a?' eu/TS tot £»£» twrmy mof/Mra Aiywr<rot. n — BelUS having 
 
 conquered the Mizraim, styled Melampodes, called the country after one of his own 
 titles, jEgyptus. In all these cases, I have shown that, for a singular, we must put a 
 plural, and by Belus, understand a people styled Beleidse, who came from Babylonia." * 
 
 These people brought with them their great skill in mechanics. When they had 
 become fairly masters of the country, they constructed the temples and great monuments 
 yet remaining. 
 
 "Juba, in his history, took notice that the city of Heliopolis was not the work 
 of the ancient Egyptians, but of Arabians, (Plin. I. VI, p. 343;) by which name the 
 sons of Chus are continually distinguished. They raised the most ancient obelisks in 
 Egypt, which were formed of one piece, yet of an amazing size; and the granite of 
 which they consist is so hard that scarcely any tool now-a-days can make an 
 impression. Hence it is a matter of wonder, how they were originally framed and 
 engraved. They are full of Hieroglyphics, curiously wrought, which, as we learn 
 from Cassiodorus, were ancient Chaldaic characters. [Obeliscorum prolixitas ad Circi 
 
 T 
 
 * Bryant's Anc. Myth. pp. 234, 235. 
 
74 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 altitudiiirni snlilcvaiiir: Bed priori soli, inferior Luna; dictatus est ubi sacra priscorum 
 Chaldaieis signis. quad litcris, indicantur. Cassiodorus, 1. 3, epis. 2, and epis. 51.] 
 These were ilio sacred characters of Egypt, known only to the priests, which had been 
 introduced by the Cutbite Ethiopians." * 
 
 We infer, from the close resemblance between the Indian temples and those 
 remaining in Egypt, that the latter were constructed by a branch of the same family 
 which built the former; and we learn from the passages just quoted from Pliny and 
 Cassiodorus, that such was the fact. 
 
 These Cuthites, then, obtained the mastery of Egypt, established a noble empire, 
 under the title of —« Oi no/urn," — "the Shepherd Kings," and constructed, as they did 
 in Chaldea, large cities, pyramids, obelisks, and other massive buildings, the remains of 
 which still furnish testimony to the magnificence and power of the race. "The 
 Shepherds are said to have maintained themselves in this situation for five hundred and 
 eleven years. At last the natives of Upper Egypt rose in opposition to them, and 
 defeated them under the conduct of king Halisphragmuthosis. They afterwards beleaguered 
 them in their stronghold, Avaris, which seems to have been a walled province, containing 
 no less than ten thousand square Arource. Here they maintained themselves for a long 
 space; but at last, under Thummosis, the son of the former king, they were reduced to such 
 straits as to be glad to leave the country." f "Wearied out by the length and 
 siraitness of the siege, they at last came to terms of composition, and agreed to leave 
 the country, if they might do it unmolested. They were permitted to depart, and 
 accordingly retired, to the amount of two hundred and forty thousand persons. 
 Amosis, upon this, destroyed their fortifications, and laid their city in ruins." J 
 
 Early writers notice the journoyings of this banished race in a northeasterly direction 
 as far as Palestine. Here all historical traces are lost of them, and their name is 
 buried in oblivion. 
 
 To prevent any ambiguity in regard to this historical account of the departure 
 of the shepherd Cuthites from Egypt, tho author begs to indulge in a farther quotation 
 
 * Bryant. Anc. Myth. vol. Ill, p. 211. 
 
 \ Ibidem. Vol. Ill, p. 237. 
 
 t Bryant. Anc. Myth. vol. Ill, p. 2 f i9. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 75 
 
 of the history of that country, but which, it is conceded, may be thought episodical 
 by the reader. As, however, it leads to very curious results, not entirely unconnected 
 with the subject, it may prove interesting and perhaps novel to some readers. 
 
 There were no less than three exodi from Egypt. The first was the one just 
 named, viz: the expulsion of two hundred and forty thousand Cuthites by Halisphragmuthosis ; 
 this occurred about two hundred years before the entrance of the Israelitish shepherds 
 into Egypt. The second exodus was that of this once holy people, under the guidance 
 of the Almighty, through his servant Moses, the account of which we have in profane 
 history, substantiated in the minutest particulars by the sacred writings given us through 
 the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which protected and preserved the race. But the 
 third is not so generally known. We propose to give a statement thereof, and show 
 the authority on which it rests. The author deems it necessary this should be kept 
 in view, in order to prevent doubt as to the course taken by the first emigrants 
 from Egypt. 
 
 It is doubtless familiar to the reader that Cadmus is said to have introduced the 
 elements of writing into Greece; that the very language of that country, oral as well 
 as scriptural, owes its origin to the ancient language of the Pelasgic race; and that 
 their mythology had its birth-place in Egypt. A valuable work, investigating the traces 
 of the descendants of Japhet, by James Parsons, M. D., London, published in 1767, 
 gives us much light on this last exodus, and very clearly points out the progress of 
 their migration through Greece, westward to Spain, and northward to the mountains of 
 Wales, and the plains of Ireland. The results he has arrived at are fully confirmed 
 by comparative philology, and by a study of the manners and customs of the Druidical 
 race. 
 
 We have shown that one of the " sons," or descendants of Nimrod [or " Belus"] 
 was named Nilus, and from him the river took its appellation. This Nilus, a direct 
 descendant of Belus, is said to have been the son of Finiusa,* who was king over 
 a band of the Scythians which hovered in the vicinity of their ancient dwelling-places 
 in Shinar. With this monarch, we commence the narrative of the events to which 
 
 * From this prince the name Phoenicia took its rise, and his descendants, under the guidance of Cadmus, were called 
 Phoenicians. 
 
76 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 we allude. They rest on tho authority of a valuable monument of antiquity called 
 ''The Roman of Milesivs," a compilation made, like the Homeric poems, by tho 
 filids, or bards, and which has, for many years, been admitted as authority by European 
 antiquarians. 
 
 " There is something very particular in this monarch's history, as delivered by these 
 filids. He is said to have been a prince of uncommon genius for learning, applying 
 himself in a most assiduous manner to the study of languages, and at length, to have 
 made himself master of many; for some time before he was established in his 
 government, there arose a variety of tongues, from the building of Babel by the sons 
 of Nimrod; and before this, that all the then inhabitants of the earth spoke but one 
 language; and that while they were busied about this tower, in order to preserve 
 themselves from another flood, by carrying it up higher than they fancied water could 
 reach, the filids say that Heber, of the family of Shcm, admonished them against 
 such an enterprise, and refused joining in it: alleging that it was a wicked attempt, 
 and a vain one, carried on in defiance of Heaven, whose ordinations there was no 
 resisting. They were not moved with his remonstrance, but obstinately persevered in 
 their resolution, when, in the midst of it, a strange confusion in their language broke 
 out, and frustrated their designs. Heber, for his pious behavior on this occasion, had 
 his language preserved pure in his family, say these records. 
 
 This Finiusa, the Scythian monarch, from his desire to attain the language of 
 Heber, and as many others as he could, sent out several learned men — by some of 
 the filids, it is said, seventy-two, for so many dialects are said to have arisen from 
 that confusion, in the several countries, which were by this time distinguished into 
 governments — in order to learn their tongues; and they were limited to seven years' 
 absence, for accomplishing that noble design. In the mean time, he resolved to go 
 himself into Machseanair, (Shinar,) which was not remote from the place where the 
 language of Shcm's family was in common use, in order to acquire that. However, 
 he waited till the return of as many of these missioncrs as were alive, and commanded 
 them to instruct the Scythian youth in all they had acquired; and then, having settled 
 the government upon his eldest son, Nvnuall, he set out upon his expedition from 
 Scythia, and arrived safe at 3Iachseanair, (Shinar,) and there erected schools for teaching 
 
OP AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 77 
 
 the languages and other sciences, according to chronicles of very high antiquity, and 
 the assent of several ancient poets, or filids. When these schools were established, 
 he called to the professorships two able and most learned men, to his assistance, and 
 invited the youth of the neighboring countries to frequent the schools for instruction. 
 The names of these were Gadel, son of Eathoir, of the posterity of Gomer, and 
 Caoih Jar, son of Neamha, the Hebrew. Fenius continued twenty years to preside 
 over these seminaries of learning, and it appears that his second son, Niul, (Nilus,) 
 was with him all the time. Fenius, after having remained twenty years in Shinar, 
 with his son, Niul, who by this time grew famous in arts and languages, was in such 
 high esteem with the neighboring nations, that they were almost ready to pay him 
 divine honors, and returned to his kingdom and resumed the reins of government, and 
 left the several schools that he established to the care of able masters, under the 
 presidency of his son Niul; and in some time after he died, and his son Nenual 
 again came to the throne. 
 
 But when Fenius returned to his kingdom from Shinar, he was accompanied by the 
 two great professors, whom he joined to himself in the foundation of those seminaries 
 of learning, mentioned before, Gadel and Caoih Jar; and the first orders he gave 
 them was to regulate the language, and appropriate out of it different dialects to different 
 stations of the several orders of his subjects, viz: to adapt particular expressions to 
 the soldiery; others to history and poetry; others to philosophy and medicine; and the 
 last was that which was spoken universally by the common people. And this is the 
 language of the native Irish to this day; and, from the first professor, Gadel, the 
 Gomerian, it is called Gaoidealg, or the Irish language. 
 
 Thus were seminaries of learning begun under Fenius; and, in process of time, 
 
 in imitation of these, others were erected, by those who had their education with him, 
 
 in other nations, till, in time, Greece became famous for its schools, and continued to 
 
 be the most signal and eminent of any in that part of the world; and long after this 
 
 time it was, that the Greek tongue, which, as I have before hinted, was a mixture 
 
 of the Egyptian and Phoenician with the Gomerian, began to be reduced to grammatical 
 
 rules, as it improved. 
 
 We now return to the ever famous Niul, whose fortune and transactions were 
 
 U 
 
78 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 chequered with variety of incidents, and whoso fame for learning and arts was equal 
 to his father's. Ho remained many years in Sliinar, presiding over these schools, 
 and engrossed so mneh of the esteem of the people that he grew very powerful, and 
 was looked upon as a law-giver, mid commander of their wills. He could have 
 improved this to his own advantage, if he pleased; hut he chose to reiurn to Scythia, 
 where he stayed at the court of his brother Ncnual, and there made it his sole 
 business, according to the bent of his own tasle, to inspect and improve the schools 
 which his lather had established. Some years passed in this manner, when, having a 
 mind to visit his schools in Shinar again, he departed from Scythia, and never more 
 returned; and was no sooner arrived than there were great rejoicings made, and the 
 report spread every where, even to the court of Pharaoh. 
 
 This monarch invited Niul to come into Egypt, being desirous a prince of his 
 character should reside in his kingdom, for the benefit and improvement of his people; 
 and being, in some time, highly pleased with his conduct and great knowledge, and 
 also knowing him to be a descendant from a royal line of ancestors, he gave him 
 his daughter Scota in marriage, and settled him in a territory along the coast of the 
 Red Sea, called Capacirunt, where he flourished, and promoted learning through all 
 his dominion. Scota bore him a son, whom his father Niul called Gaodhal, or 
 Gadclas. 
 
 It was at this very time tiiat the great event of the exodus of the children of 
 Israel happened; and accordingly, the filids and poets all agree that when Moses had 
 made his encampment near the Red Sea, Niul was alarmed at the approach of so 
 great a body of people, and took proper measures to inform himself of their affairs. 
 They also say that he had an interview with Aaron, who informed him that these 
 were the people whom his father-in-law, Pharaoh Cingeris, had in bondage for so long 
 a time; and that now the God whom they worshiped was miraculously working their 
 deliverance. Niul was affected at what he had heard, and favored their escape as 
 much as he could, offering them every accommodation in his power; which is, in some 
 measure, a proof that Niul was no favorer of idolatry, but was a worshipper of the 
 true God. 
 
 They also say that Niul, not knowing what was to happen to the host of Pharaoh, 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 79 
 
 was under some apprehensions of resentment from him, fbr having favored this people, 
 whom Pharaoh accounted no better than slaves, and now in an act of rebellion, in 
 their flight, and accordingly communicated his fears to Moses; that Moses offered him 
 and his people a settlement in the land to which he was leading his followers, if he 
 was in any fear; but, say they, he did not comply with this, choosing rather to be 
 secured some other way; and that therefore Moses advised him to seize upon some 
 Egyptian ships that were upon his coasts, and go on board, with the principal persons 
 of his family, and stand out to sea, till it should be known what was to be the 
 fate of the Egyptians; which he accordingly did, on the day before they were 
 overwhelmed in the sea. 
 
 When Niul was informed of the destruction of the Egyptians, he landed and 
 returned home, and had several children, who grew to manhood before he died, and 
 left behind him, all over the neighboring countries, the character of one of the most 
 valiant, most learned and wise of princes; when his eldest son, Gadelas, with his 
 mother, Scota, assumed the government of their territory with great harmony and 
 unanimity. 
 
 Gadelas had a son, who reigned after him, called Easru; and he was succeeded by 
 his son, whom he named Sru; and this was the prince who was driven out of Egypt, 
 which several authors testify; for when, by the wisdom of his grandfather, Gadelas, and 
 of Easru, his father, the nation grew great and much increased, as well as renowned 
 for learning, one of the successors of Pharaoh Cingeris, it is uncertain which of them, 
 meditated a quarrel with Sru, under pretence of revenging the favor that Niul had 
 formerly showed the Israelites, in their approach to the Red Sea; and accordingly he 
 raised a powerful army, and entered his country with all the terrors of war, and 
 forced Sru, with his whole family, and a great many followers, to fly. 
 
 Walsingham, I am informed, in his Hypodigma, asserts that ' when the Egyptians 
 were drowned in the Red Sea, those that remained drove out a Scythian prince, who 
 resided among them, lest he should take an advantage, and attempt to seize the 
 government; and when he was expelled the country, with his followers, he came to 
 Spain, where he and his people lived many years, and became too numerous, and from 
 thence they came to Ireland.' 
 
80 AN I.YQriRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 The words of Walsingham are said to bo these, and aro indeed very remarkable: 
 'Efyptiis in Mari Rubro submcrsis, illi qui supcrfucrunt cxpulerunt a se quondam 
 nobilem Scythicum qui degebat apud cos, nc dominium super cos invadcrct; cxpulsus 
 ille cum familia, pcrvenit ad Hispaniam, ubi ct habitant annis multis, et progenies ipsius 
 familkc multac multiplicata est nimis; et indc venerunt in Hiberniam.' " * 
 
 This emigration, it is generally believed, commenced by a voyage across the 
 Mediterranean to Crete, whence they traveled westward. From the combination of 
 incidents noticeable throughout the history just related, viz: that at about the time fixed 
 by Grecian chronology, a race headed by the descendant of the founder of the 
 Phoenician race, should arrive at Crete, expert in the learning of Scythia and Egypt, 
 and of course bringing with them the rudiments of scriptural language: we have some 
 ground for believing that we may herein recognise the migration of Cadmus, and his 
 introduction of alphabetical characters. Still farther may this afford a matter of interesting 
 investigation for future research, when the study of comparative philology has declared 
 most carious analogies between the Basque, the Erse, Gomcric, and Coptic languages, 
 both in lexical comparison, as also in grammatical idiom a fact, not to be accounted 
 for unless in this manner, and which seems to be rendered still more probable by the 
 antiquities yet presented in the countries to which this race is said to have finally 
 gone — witness the tumuli and barrows found along the plains of Bulgaria, westward to 
 Spain, and northward to the British Isles, the Druidical remains of Stone Henge, and 
 other places, and some very curious analogies in the Druidical mythology and customs, 
 as illustrated by Mr. Edmond Maurice, and which he proves to have emanated from 
 Scythia through Egypt. For a more full and satisfactory examination of these points, 
 the author begs to refer the reader to the able works alluded to, as here the 
 results only can be given. 
 
 From what has here been related, then, it is thought that little or no doubt can arise 
 as to the destination of the three expelled races, on their departure from Egypt: Tlie first, 
 in a north-easterly direction, through Palestine; the second, under Jehovah's guidance, 
 into the land of Canaan; and the third, through Greece, westwardly through Europe, 
 
 * Remains of Japhct, pp. 115 a 123. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 81 
 
 to their final destination in Great Britain. Here, then, we return to the subject matter 
 of our investigation, viz: the progress of this first migratory race of Cuthite "shepherds," 
 after they journeyed from Egypt to Palestine. 
 
 In the prosecution of this study, much difficulty arises from the ambiguity of 
 every author as to the residence of the family called "Scythian." Mr. Bryant has 
 satisfactorily established the origin of the name, and accounted for the multiplicity of 
 localities denominated Scythia; for, wherever this family conquered a country, they 
 called it in general terms Cuthia, or Scythia, to promote a remembrance of their 
 power and greatness. In early days all south-western Asia was comprehended under 
 the name of Scythia. But as the Cuthites became vanquished, and in their turn met 
 the reverses of fortune, by becoming scattered over the earth, the original name, 
 Scythia, was subsequently applied by writers to different countries. When in process 
 of time, Greece was in her high estate of power, learning, and refinement, her 
 geographers meant by Scythia, all the country north of Thrace and Macedonia; for 
 the original home of the Scythians had taken the name of Babylonia: Shinar had 
 become again Assyria: Chusistan retained its name: and Egypt retained the original 
 appellation of Chamia, or Mesora. As they met their destiny in banishment, even 
 their name gradually became extinct. The traces of this banished race became 
 unknown, and it may be believed that from the supposition they had gone north, the 
 Greeks gave the name " Scythia " to that remote, and to them, unknown country, 
 whither it was supposed they had retired, although that country was allotted to the 
 descendants of Japhet, and was by them inhabited. 
 
 It will be recollected by those who are familiar with the works of Sir William 
 Jones, that he invariably calls this band of Cuthites, " the old Persians," from the 
 fact, that their original home is now the Persian Empire: and by the name "Scythians," 
 he does not allude to the race of which we have been writing, but that family which 
 received their title from the Greeks; whose residence comprehended Russia, Poland, 
 Sweden, Denmark, and Germany; and who were descendants of Japhet. "These 
 descendants of Gog and his brothers," says Dr. Parsons, "were the people, who, in 
 after ages, had the appellation of Scythians, as it is agreed on by many authors of 
 
 V 
 
82 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 authority, as Joscphus, Jerome, and most of the Fathers* With this view of the 
 truth, may wo not detect the continued joumcyings of tho banished shepherds, i:i their 
 polemic migration, by a reference to the following quotation, viz: 
 
 "The only great monuments of Tartarian antiquity, are a line of ramparts on 
 the west and cast of the Caspian, ascribed, indeed, by ignorant Musselmen to Yajug 
 and Majug, or Gog and Magog, that is, to the Scythians," [the descendants of Japhet,] 
 " but manifestly raised by a very different nation, to stop their predatory inroads through 
 the passes of Caucasus. The Chinese wall was built and finished on a similar 
 construction, and for a similar purpose, by an Emperor who died only two hundred 
 and ten years before our era: and the other mounds were very probably constructed 
 by the old Persians," [the descendants of Cush,] " though like many works of unknown 
 origin, they aro given to Secander, not the Macedonian, but a more ancient hero, 
 supposed by some to have been Jemshid. It is related that pyramids and tombs have 
 been found in Sataristan, or western Scythia, and some remnants of edifices in the 
 lake Saisan; that vestiges of a deserted city have been recently discovered by the 
 Russians, near the Caspian Sea, and the Mountain of Eagles; and that golden 
 ornaments and utensils, figures of elks and other quadrupeds, in metal, weapons of 
 various kinds, and even implements for mining, but made of copper instead of iron, 
 have been dug up in the country of the Tohudes; whence, M. Bailly infers, with great 
 reason, the high antiquity of that people; but the high antiquity of the Tartars, and 
 their establishment in that country near four thousand years ago, no man disputes."! 
 
 In order to establish, however, with greater satisfaction to the reader, that these 
 works were constructed by the banished shepherds, it may not be amiss to introduce 
 a quotation from another work of undoubted authority. Alluding to the mountains of 
 Caucasus, Captain Wilford remarks: 
 
 " The true Sanscrit name of this mountain is C'hasa-giri, or ' the mountain of 
 the Chasas,'' a most ancient and powerful trihe, who inhabited this immense range, 
 from the eastern limits of India to the confines of Persia; and most probably as far 
 
 • Remains of Japhet, p. 39. 
 t Sir Win. Jones's works. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 83 
 
 as the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. They are often mentioned in the sacred books 
 of the Hindus. They are certainly a very ancient tribe; for they are mentioned as 
 such in the Institutes of Menu; and their great ancestor, Chasa, or Chasya, [Chus 
 or Cush,] is mentioned by Sanchoniathon under the name of Cassius. Pliny (lib. vi. 
 chap. 30,) informs us that mount Caucasus was also called Graucasus; an appellation 
 obviously Sanscrit; for Grava, which, in conversation, as well as in the spoken dialects, 
 is invariably pronounced Grau, signifies " a mountain," and being a monosyllable (the 
 final being surd,) according to the rules of grammar, it is to be prefixed thus, 
 Grava-CJiasa, or Grau-Chasa. The words Chasu or Chasa are pronounced Chasa 
 or Cos, Chusa, or Cusa, by the inhabitants of the countries between Bahlac and 
 the Indus."* 
 
 Here, then, is testimony showing the descendants of Cush to have immigrated to 
 the very spot where, from the testimony of Sir William Jones, these ramparts are 
 discovered; and also proving the range of mountains to have derived their name from 
 this same family, Grau-Chasa " the mountain of the Chasas, or sons of Chus." An 
 additional reason for believing it to be the same family is the fact, that the remains 
 yet to be found there, are tumuli, pyramidical edifices, and mural defences. So 
 far as we can learn, this was the only race on record, which at that early period 
 knew any thing about castrametation or fortification. The other nations of that age 
 were peaceful, and pastoral in their habits. Their flocks and herds, and increasing 
 posterity, occupied their sole attention, save the time they devoted to the duties of 
 religion. Witness the simplicity of life narrated in the earliest book extant; the 
 chronicle of Job; the Idumean patriarch. He affords us a fair picture of the man of 
 that age of the world — peaceful and pastoral, and skilled in lore, not only of this, 
 but of a better world. Who are represented as the invaders of his happiness by 
 driving off his herds, &c? It is the very family of whom we speak, the Chusdim, 
 or Chaldeans. The learned Dr. Hales has proved astronomically, and Bishop Warburton, 
 and Michaelis critically, that this patriarch endured the trial recorded of him, eight 
 hundred and eighteen years after the deluge, and four hundred and seventy four years 
 
 * Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. p. 455. R Calmet Diet. Art. "Caucasus," 
 
81 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 before the settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt* It must have been then one of 
 the bands of Cuthites, on their march from Shinar through Idumea into the land of 
 Mizraim, who so cruelly misused this holy man. But to return. It will be recollected 
 that all the families of man had places of residence assigned to them by the 
 Almighty, and to these they had retired in the days of Peleg, for in his time we 
 are informed the division of the earth was made, and apportioned by Jehovah. It 
 will farther be borne in mind that all were obedient and retired to their allotted 
 dwelling places, except this family of Chus, who seized first on the kingdom of Assur, 
 or Assyria; then on Elam or Persia, to which they gave their own name "Chus-istan;" 
 then on Hindostan; while others of the family went westward, and made themselves 
 masters successively of Idumea, and the country of the Mizraim, or Egypt. In short 
 they were a race, hostile to every other, and disposed to exercise their knowledge 
 and power in acts of tyranny over their weaker brethren. But the Almighty reserved 
 for them ■ severe retribution, and their subsequent history, as we can faintly trace it 
 to the present day, has been a series of reverses, necessarily consequent, as it appears, 
 on the commission of their original error. Their first reverse was the dispersion of 
 the race at Babel; next, their expulsion from Egypt. Now it must be apparent, that 
 any migration of this race (no matter what direction they might choose,) must be made 
 through hostile families; through nations on whose rights they had trampled when in 
 power. Their migration then must necessarily have been polemic. We know them 
 to have been skilful in erecting mural defences. Where, then, we trace these defences, 
 in the remains of ramparts, walls, &,c, we may consider ourselves, with no small 
 degree of certainty, on the correct track of this exiled race; and having discovered 
 these ramparts as far north as the Caucasian mountains, the very name of which 
 confirms the fact, we deem ourselves safe in tracing them thus far. 
 
 It will be recollected perhaps, that in the argument exhibiting the anatomical analogy 
 between the aboriginal race of America, and that of Southern Asia, a close affinity 
 was remarked between the characteristic traits of the North American Indian, and the 
 Mongol or Tartar race, in their nomadic life, and their rejection of civilization. We 
 
 * Home's Introduct. to Crit. Study of Holy Scrip, vol. iv. p. 74. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 85 
 
 find in North America, tumuli, ramparts, &c, which the Indians know nothing about; 
 
 and from what has thus far been shown, these works prove to be the remains of 
 
 some other, and a more civilized race. The Mongolian family are equally rude with 
 
 the Indian, and as little disposed to exert a talent for mechanical ingenuity. If then 
 
 we find in Tartary and Siberia monuments, like the American, displaying industry, 
 
 and talent, unknown to and unpractised by those nations, we must necessarily conclude 
 
 they are the works of some ancient and great people once occupying the land so 
 
 enriched by the remnants of former greatness and power. That these exist it is 
 
 proposed to show: 
 
 "In Siberia, the southern frontier mountains, from the Tobol to the Jenesai, and 
 
 the steppes in the middle regions of the Lena, have been inhabited by the Mongol 
 
 Tartars: and particularly in the governments of Ufa, Kazan, and Tobolsk. Frequent 
 
 memorials are found there of ancient grandeur, magnificence, and culture; of which 
 
 some are of an antiquity demonstrably of above a thousand years. 
 
 "It is no rare thing to come suddenly upon the ruins of some town, which, in 
 
 its crumbling remains, plainly evinces the progress which the arts had made. Still 
 
 more frequently are seen sepulchres, which, by their inscriptions, throw light on 
 
 the history of this nation; and, in the vessels and implements preserved in them, 
 
 supply us with interesting proofs of its opulence, its taste, and its industry. 
 
 "In the museum at St. Petersburg, are preserved a multitude of vessels, diadems, 
 
 weapons, military trophies, ornaments of dress, coins, &c, which have been found 
 
 in the Tartarian tombs, in Siberia, and on the Volga. They are of gold, silver, 
 
 and copper. 
 
 "In the tombs of Siberia, and the deserts which border it southward, are found 
 
 thousands of cast idols of gold, silver, copper, tin, and brass. I have seen, says 
 
 Stralenberg, some, of the finest gold, three inches long, in the form of minotaurs, 
 
 harts, old men, and other figures; all sorts of urns, trinkets, scimitars, medals of 
 
 gold and silver, chess-boards and chess-men of gold; large golden plates, upon which 
 
 the dead bodies have been laid, (not unlike the Bractei ' aurei,) and clothes folded 
 
 up, such as the corpse is dressed in. 
 
 " Some of the tombs are of earth, and raised as high as houses, and in such 
 
 W 
 
86 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 numbers, upon the plain, that at a distance, they appear like a ridge of hills; some 
 are partly of rough hewn stones or of free-stone, oblong and triangular; others of 
 them are built entirely of stone. Colonel Kanifer told me that the ambassadors of 
 the Chinese Tartars, when passing the city of Jenesai, asked permission to visit the 
 tombs of their ancestors, but were refused; not improbably, because they would have 
 seen that they were rifled and demolished. 
 
 " Golden medals have been dug out of a tomb not far from the Irtish, between 
 the salt lake Jamischewa and the city Omm, or Ommostrock. About twenty or thirty 
 years ago, before the Czars of Russia were acquainted with these matters, the 
 governors of the cities Tara, Tomskoi, Crasnoyar, Batsamki, Isetskhoe, and others, 
 used to give leave to the inhabitants to go in caravans, to ransack the tombs, on 
 condition that, of whatever they should find of gold, silver, copper, jewels, and other 
 things of value, the governor should have the tenth. These choice antiquities were 
 often broken and shared by weight. They have dug for years, and the treasures are 
 not exhausted. 
 
 "The graves of the poorer sort have such things of copper and brass: arrows 
 of copper and iron, stirrups, large and small polished plates of metal, or mirrors, 
 with characters upon them. Urns are found of different sizes, some almost two feet 
 high, and some more: some with, and some without handles. Many of these graves 
 are very deep."* 
 
 Here, then, arc the remains of an ancient family, whose descendants have left 
 the tombs of their forefathers; and which, deserted and a prey to the cupidity of 
 modern barbarians, form no unimportant link in the chain connecting the evidences of 
 the early unity of the human family. u They have been, and are not," is the lesson 
 they teach the moralist. The antiquarian, however, derives an equally useful lesson. 
 "They have been," but who were they, and why did they leave these sacred spots, 
 consecrated by the resting places of their departed friends, and doubtless endeared by 
 bonds of no slender tie; if we may form a correct judgment of the resources and 
 and power of the race, by the vestiges of their grandeur? We cannot well conceive 
 
 * Rnnking*s Conquest of Peru. Notes, p. 236. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 87 
 
 a motive for the emigration of an entire people from a land of wealth and abundant 
 resources, but the compulsion of a superior power. Where in history or tradition are 
 we to look for the race that built these sepulchral tumuli, or for the causes which 
 yet again expelled them thence? History points us only to a nomadic race as the 
 occupants of that land. Tradition carries the possession of this country by the Tartar 
 nation back to the earliest days of the peopling of the world. Yet we know their 
 ancestors built them not. They can no more account for the origin of these remains, 
 than can the North American Indian for that of the tumuli of his land. Evidently 
 then, some roving family, possessed of learning, skill in architecture, and genius in 
 mechanical avocations, and which must have come from the south, (for all knowledge 
 originated there,) once entered and occupied this land. It has been shown that 
 astronomy, even at that early day, was well understood. The Chusdim or Chaldeans 
 established and preserved the astronomical and astrological learning of Egypt. We find 
 among the present occupants of this country, the Siberian Tartars, a zodiac taken 
 from that of Egypt; and, as has been noticed in page 51, this identical zodiac 
 has been also discovered in Mexico. Again, we noticed in page 60, a very peculiar 
 construction of bridges, common to this country and to Mexico. We find too the 
 greatest mural defences in the world in this land, of which the origin is unknown: — 
 witness the celebrated wall of China. 
 
 When, then, we find history pointing us to an exiled race, slowly travelling in a 
 northwardly direction, through hosts of foes, whose animosity, revenge for past tyranny, 
 and a spirit of self-preservation, would constantly drive them forward and onward: — 
 and when we see this race possessed of the very genius, which, in no other in those 
 days, produced a similar degree of excellence, enabling them to raise pyramids, 
 and cities, and ramparts for protection, preserving their dead with scrupulous 
 care, and interring with them such animals, and relics as were supposed to be of 
 use in a future world: — are we not irresistibly led to the conclusion, that this 
 family arrived at this land, and for a season held dominion over it? Possessed 
 as they must have been of great resources, they no doubt formed an object of 
 envy and hatred, not only to the tribes whose territory they were now occupying, 
 but to those through whose country they had fought their way. A slight knowledge 
 
S3 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 then of human nature must indicate, as very credible, the results actually noticed, 
 viz: an expulsion of the race, to yet more northern and untried regions. A banished 
 army of two hundred and forty thousand persons, could not well proceed through 
 a hostile country, without being compelled to obtain sustenance by force. Skilful in 
 war, they erected ramparts for defence, and entrenched themselves strongly, until driven 
 by superior power farther on their route. War to them was a common occurrence. 
 Witness their character as portrayed by the prophet Habakkuk, who probably alludes 
 to a portion of this very family, in c. i, v. 6 — 11. 
 
 6. For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, 
 A bitter and a hasty nation, 
 
 Which marches far and wide in the earth, 
 To possess the dwellings which are not theirs. 
 
 7. They are terrible and dreadful. 
 
 Their decrees and their judgments proceed only from themselves. 
 
 8. Swifter than leopards are their horses, 
 And fiercer than the evening wolves, 
 Their horsemen prance proudly around, 
 
 And their horsemen shall come from afar, and fly, 
 Like the. eagle when he pounces on his prey. 
 
 9. They all shall come for violence, 
 
 In troops. Their glance is ever forward ! 
 They gather captives like the sand ! 
 
 10. And they scoff at kings, 
 
 And princes are a scorn unto them. 
 
 They divide every strong hold; 
 
 They cast up [mounds of] earth and take it. 
 
 11. Then renews itself his spirit, and transgresses, and is guilty, 
 
 For this his power is his God. 
 This warlike family probably resided some time in this northern section of Asia, 
 for they have left numerous vestiges of their residence there. Speaking of these 
 Siberians, whom Dr. Parsons calls by the very name of "Scythians," it is recorded 
 
OP AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 89 
 
 "that many nations of the early Scythians were become examples to other people, for 
 the purity of their laws, philosophy, music, and poetry, as well as a true heroic 
 spirit. But when their colonies were driven into more remote parts, they forgot, in 
 process of time, every thing that did not immediately regard their necessities, and 
 were therefore reduced to such a state as we see the North Americans are now 
 in, living in tribes or nations, by hunting and cattle, without tillage, or any other 
 improvement, or constant settlement, and making incursions upon one another like them; 
 and this we see is the case at present, even under the dominion of the Russians 
 and Tartars, in the remotest parts of those empires, which are so extensive, 
 notwithstanding there are emperors, kings, and khans at their head in several of 
 these countries."* It is the opinion of the writer, that the learned author from 
 whom this extract is made, has confounded the ancient heroic Chaldean race, formerly 
 dwelling in this country, with the Mongol race who subsequently occupied Siberia, 
 and who, with the northern Europeans indiscriminately, obtained the name of 
 "Scythians" from the Greeks. For he speaks of the earliest inhabitants as learned 
 and heroic, but " when their colonies were driven into more remote parts," or in 
 more correct words, when this learned and heroic Scythian band was expelled, 
 the Mongolian family who ejected them, attended to nought but what regarded their 
 necessities, and closely correspond to the North American Indian, who indeed has 
 been shown in page 27, to be of this same family. This, however, is still more 
 clearly illustrated by a reference to the writings of Herodotus, who is very foil in 
 his accounts of the customs of some of the Scythians, [by whom he means the 
 Tartars or Mongol race.] He tells us, that in order to initiate their young men, 
 and women in the feats of war, they ■ never suffered the former to be present at 
 feasts or councils, till they had killed at least one enemy; nor the latter to marry, 
 till they had done the same respectively; and the custom was, to bring the heads 
 of such as they slew to their chief, which in proportion to the number, increased 
 the honor and character of the person. He also goes so far as to say they used 
 to drink some of the blood of the first prisoner they subdued; and that they often 
 
 * Remains of Japhet, p. 63. X 
 
90 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 took off the skins of the slain, and dressed them. Alluding to this nation of Tartars 
 and (heir habits, " This," says Dr. Parsons, " and several others of their customs, 
 would almost persuade ono to believe the North Americans were a people of the 
 Scythian, [Mongolian,] race; because, as war was the chief concern of these herds 
 of Scythians, [Mongolians,] and is so even to this day, so it is now of the 
 North Americans; and a conformity of manners and customs in the principal objects 
 of different nations, would encourage such an opinion; for what is more conformable 
 to the Scythian [Mongolian] custom of bringing the heads or skins of enemies to 
 their chiefs, than that of the North American Indians bringing the sedps of their 
 enemies to theirs; and pluming themselves with the number of scalps they cut off, 
 sometimes wearing them as ornamental trophies of honor, and sometimes hanging them 
 up, in view, in their huts, in order to engross the esteem of their brethren and 
 neighbors. And, indeed, one might very naturally suppose, that the first custom among 
 the Americans was to bring the heads of their enemies, as tokens of their bravery; 
 but that when they went pretty long journeys, which they often do, to invade their 
 enemies, they found it too troublesome to carry the heads, and therefore thought the 
 scalps of as many as they killed, as sufficient a testimony of their services, as if 
 they had brought the entire heads." * 
 
 Let it be distinctly remembered, that Siberia and Russia were not called 
 "Scythian" until the Greeks gave them the appellation, in consequence of the northern 
 emigration of the true family of Cush, and these countries subsequently retained the 
 name, although conquered by the Mongolians, and inhabited by them. Herodotus has 
 reference to this Tartar nation, and Dr. Parsons in the extract just quoted, distinctly 
 asserts that it is to them he alludes. 
 
 Now we clearly trace this Mongolian family in the lineaments, language, and 
 manners and customs of the North American Indians. They must have passed from 
 one continent to the other. 
 
 From the analogies comprised in the early portion of this work, we also clearly see 
 that some ancient race came from the southern parts of Asia; and, wandering 
 
 * Remains of Japhet, p. 64. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 91 
 
 southwardly through America, resumed their ancient customs, preserved in some degree 
 their language, built ramparts, pyramids and cities as of old, and established their 
 primitive systems of mythology and astronomy. History, too, points out clearly the 
 emigration from Babylon to Egypt, Egypt to Caucasus, and Caucasus to Siberia, of 
 a learned, warlike, and great nation. We also know they were driven hence, but 
 here we lose all traces of them, and their only vestiges are the walls, and 
 ramparts, tumuli, and medals, yet discoverable in the latter country, where, since 
 their time, a nomadic race, and one partaking in no degree of the excellence of 
 that driven away, has held dominion. From the analogical evidence alluded to, 
 there is some probability they went to America from Siberia, and founded the civilized 
 empire there discovered. It is deserving of inquiry, whether this probability can be 
 made a matter of certainty. In order to do this satisfactorily, it were well first 
 distinctly to understand the position, and distance of that very narrow passage of 
 water, dividing Asia from America, usually known as Behring's Straits. 
 
 In A. D. 1761, T. Jefferies published an account, by a Mr. Muller, of 
 " Voyages from Asia to America, for compleating the discoveries of the northwest coast 
 of America," and a summary of " Voyages made by the Russians on the Frozen 
 Sea, in search of a northeast passage." These state distinctly, "that there is a real 
 separation between Asia and America; that it consists only in a narrow strait and 
 that within this strait one, or more, islands are situated; by which the passage 
 from one of these parts of the world to the other is facilitated. From ancient times 
 the inhabitants of each of these parts of the world had knowledge of each other." 
 
 From " The Encyclopaedia of Geography," a valuable work recently published, 
 edited by Hugh Murray, is quoted the following description of this celebrated passage 
 of water: "The shore continues low, flat, and well-peopled, till its westerly direction 
 terminates at Cape Prince of Wales, a lofty peaked hill, forming the western limit 
 of America, and which is separated by Behring's Strait, fifty-two miles broad, from 
 the Eastern Cape of Asia, a bold mountainous promontory, covered with snow in 
 the midst of summer. The navigator who sails through the middle of the strait can 
 distinctly view at once these grand boundaries of the two continents. Beyond Cape 
 Prince of Wales, the American coast stretches south by east in an almost continued 
 
92 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 * 
 
 line, broken only by the deep inlets of Norton Sound and Bristol Bay. It then 
 shoots out into the long narrow promontory of Alashka, which reaches westward 
 almost as far as Capo Prince of Wales, beyond which the coast bends very rapidly 
 to the eastward. This region, which has been very imperfectly explored, is diversified 
 by hills of moderate elevation, interspersed by valleys, which in summer display a 
 rich verdure. It is occupied by tho Tchulchi and by tribes called the Kitegnes and 
 the Konaigucs. The Russians have a small fort, called Alcxandrovskaia, in the 
 interior of Bristol Bay. The peninsula of Alashka is traversed by two lofty 
 mountains, one of which is volcanic. Near the American coast, and considered till 
 lately as forming part of it, is Nunivak, a considerable island; while westward from 
 Norton Sound, and belonging rather to Asia, is the larger one called St. Lawrence, 
 or Gierke. Both are inhabited, but only by native tribes. In the Sea of Bchring are 
 three smaller islands, St. Paul, St. George, and Sea Otter, on the first two of 
 which the Russians have formed fishing establishments. Even in the centre of tho 
 strait are found three islets, called, by Bccchey, Ratmanoff, Kruscnstera, and Fairway, 
 the last on account of the safe passage afforded between it and the American coast."* 
 
 The practicability then of a passage across these straits is made certain. They 
 are only fifty-two miles across, and that distance is divided by three islands. To 
 establish, then, the probability that emigration followed this route, the following 
 considerations are worthy of attention: 
 
 " But, to pursue our account of some particular customs, common to the Western 
 Americans, and the people in North-eastern Tartary, let us see what some of Captain 
 Bearing's people found, who were sent on shore, when he discovered the American 
 coasts. Chitrow, a master in his fleet, commanded those who were sent off; and he 
 went among some small islands, near the continent, and in one of them found some 
 empty huts, (Voyages from Asia to America, page 12, by Muller;) and it was 
 supposed, the inhabitants of the continent used to come thither, on account of the 
 fishery. These huts were found of smooth hoards, in some places carved, whence it 
 may bo concluded, says Muller, that the inhabitants arc not quite so wild and 
 uncivilized, as those in North America are generally described to be. 
 
 * Encyclopedia of Geography, vol. iii. p. 344. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 93 
 
 He found, in a hut, a small box of poplar; a hollow earthen ball, in which a 
 stone rattled, like a toy for children, and a whetstone, on which it appeared that 
 copper knives had been sharpened. Now, even in Siberia, in the uppermost parts 
 on the river Janisei, all sorts of edge tools of copper have been found in the 
 ancient pagan graves, and none of iron; which is a proof,, that the use of copper 
 has been of greater antiquity, in those regions, than that of iron. 
 
 Mr. Steller, who accompanied that expedition, went on shore with them; and he 
 employed himself chiefly in gathering plants, of which he brought so great a quantity 
 on board ship, that it took him a considerable time afterwards to describe them. 
 His whole stay there was not above six hours; for, as soon as they had taken in 
 a sufficient quantity of water, he was, with great reluctance, obliged to go on board 
 again. Afterwards, his descriptions of these plants were inserted, by Professor Gmelin, 
 in the Flora Siberia. Besides the plants, Steller observed some other things, which 
 are very worthy of being known: he met with a cellar, and in it a store of red 
 salmon, and some of the herb spondilium, which was dressed for food, in the same 
 manner as in Kamptschatka; there were also ropes, and all sorts of household 
 furniture; he came to a place where the Americans had just before dined, but who, 
 on sight of him, ran away. He found also an arrow, and a wooden instrument to 
 procure fire, made in the same manner as they have them at Kamptschatka; which 
 consists of a board with several holes in it, and a stick ; the one end of which 
 is put into a hole, and turned swiftly about, between the hands, till the wood within 
 the hole begins to burn; when they have tinder ready, which they light, and so 
 make fires when they think proper. 
 
 Van Strahlenberg, where he mentions Kamptschatka, thinks there are many reasons 
 
 for believing this country was formerly contiguous to North America and that, even 
 
 to this day, there remains a communication, by means of a chain of islands: his 
 
 motives for this notion of a contiguity, I cannot comprehend; but it is plain, that 
 
 he was not well acquainted "with the true situation of those places, however accurate 
 
 he may have been in laying down his map of Siberia, and the neighboring parts. 
 
 He thought the communication between the Kamptschatkan and American shores, was 
 
 by a chain of islands; and he called this country the Jecco of the Chinese, arid 
 
 Y 
 
94 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 Jesso of the Germans: but we are now better informed where this Jesso, or Jedso, 
 lies ; and that, in several places, the American may be discerned from the Asiatic, 
 or Tartarian, shores. This is ascertained from the observations made in the Russian 
 expeditions, and faithfully published by Mr. Muller, both in his accounts of them, 
 and in the map which is laid down for their better illustration; from which it 
 appears, that their distances are surprizingly small, of which I shall mention the 
 particulars, after remembering a few more of the customs, in which the people of 
 both continents seem greatly to agree: it is well known, that some inhabitants of 
 both have no fixed habitations, but rove from place to place, with their herds and 
 families; some, in both, as the Peruvians and Kamptschatkans, hang their dead on 
 trees, exposed; some Indians live in huts built upon four pieces of timber, at a 
 considerable distance from the ground; so do the inhabitants of many parts of 
 Tartary. 
 
 The sorceries practised in almost innumerable places in Tartary, and even in 
 Lapland, with and without drums, are found among the Americans, in a great 
 measure similar to those of the former; notwithstanding the same notion, among many 
 of the nations on both continents, of a Supreme Being governing all things. 
 Another most striking argument, for the first peopling of America from Tartary, is, 
 that no horses were found there by the Spaniards; but that, in their stead, the 
 people in several places were found to make use of rein deer, and, in others, 
 dogs to draw their burdens. Now no one will deny, but that both these methods are 
 the constant practice of the most Northern Tartars, from the end of the Frozen Sea, 
 to the most eastern promontory of the Tschutschi. We know rein deer are common 
 beasts for draught, or burden, in Lapland, Russia, Tartary, &c. and whoever reads 
 Muller's account of the Russian expeditions, I mentioned before, v/ill find, that when 
 some of the adventurers were obliged to travel over land, they hired dogs to carry 
 their goods, and often themselves, for many leagues, there being neither horses nor 
 rein deer to be had in those parts. If it be objected, that no parts of the world 
 produce horses in greater numbers than Tartary; it will hold true of the more fertile 
 temperate nations, where there is naturally plenty of proper forage for them; but no 
 horses could live in regions so far north, where the ground is perpetually covered 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 95 
 
 with snow, and where nothing fit for the nourishment of that noble animal is to be 
 found; in a word, where no animal, of any use to mankind, could ever find food, 
 but rein deer, by scraping away the snow, and eating the poor moss, and such like 
 herbage, there; and the dogs, which they feed with a certain allowance of dried 
 fish only; whereas, in the whole range of Southern Tartary, which is a prodigious 
 tract of land, horses abound; and from hence, it is easy to conclude, that in those 
 northern latitudes, for it is in those the continents of Asia and America approach 
 each other the nearest, it would be wholly impracticable to bring horses from the 
 more southern parts; for they would perish with cold and hunger: and, consequently, 
 there could not be any horses found in North America. The people, we know, can 
 shift for themselves, and dwell in those places, from whence they sailed over to 
 America; but could not carry horses along with them; and in the more southern 
 latitudes, where horses are common enough, the shores of the Eastern and Western 
 worlds were at too great a distance for transportation by sea, over the great Pacific 
 Ocean, in those early times." * 
 
 Here, however, we are falling too much into conjecture and hypothesis, and 
 until lately this has been a subject of mere speculation. A new evidence has, 
 however, been brought to light; which, when better understood, may teach us the 
 certainty of what has been heretofore a subject of much doubt. 
 
 About the year A. D. 1780, the Chevalier Botturini, an Italian gentleman, 
 visited Mexico, for the purpose of obtaining what information was to be had touching 
 the ancient inhabitants of America. He was ardently engaged in the pursuit of all 
 that contributed to develope the history of past ages, and in forming collections 
 which would illustrate the manners and customs of races which were at his day 
 almost forgotten. At Mexico he received the polite attentions of the Government; 
 and every facility was afforded him of becoming acquainted with the history and 
 customs of the various nations, successively conquerors and occupants of Anahuac, as 
 Mexico was anciently termed. He was highly successful in amassing valuable information, 
 and in collecting hieroglyphic paintings, maps, and drawings of the temples, idols, &c. 
 
 ' Remains of Japhet, p. 229. 
 
96 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 but from unknown causes, before ho was quite ready to return to Europe, lie 
 unhappily incurred the disploasuro of the government, and was incarcerated. Tho 
 unfortunate gentleman died in prison of a broken heart. His papers, and manuscript 
 collections were taken from him, and became scattered. 
 
 Subsequently, Mr. Bullock, of London, — than whom none has ever proved more 
 enthusiastic and energetic in pursuit of specimens of antiquity, and of ancient and 
 modern art, — visited Mexico with nearly, if not the same views, as those of M. 
 Botturini. Through indefatigable exertion and industry, Mr. Bullock succeeded in 
 making casts of planispheres, zodiacs and idols, which he took home to London, and 
 exhibited in a room fitted up for the purpose in his Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. 
 Among other curiosities, he obtained a very long " Aztec Map," delineating the 
 travels of this race through America, a fac-simile of which is prefixed to this work. 
 
 This map, if it may properly be so called, was among the valuable collections 
 of M. Botturini, and was confiscated with the rest of his property by the Mexican 
 government. On Mr. Bullock's visiting Mexico, with a view to obtain knowledge 
 and specimens of art, which should throw light on the history of the ancient races 
 which occupied that country, lie fortunately procured this map, and took it with him 
 to England. It was there exhibited and attracted the wonder of the citizens of 
 London; but yet no learned person seems to have stepped forward to apply scrutiny 
 and investigation towards unravelling its mysteries. It will bo noticed there are 
 numerical figures on it, and at the end of the map is a table of references. These 
 were originally made by M. Botturini, and those on the engraving, prefixed to this 
 volume, are fac-similcs of the original chirograph of that gentleman. When Mr. 
 Bullock again left London, and established his residence in Cincinnati, Ohio, he 
 brought with him two copies of this drawing, both of which are at present in this 
 city, and from these the annexed engraving is taken. The writer of this volume has 
 received from Mr. Bullock himself, the history of his acquisition of this valuable 
 document, and is farther informed by him, that a copy yet exists in the Cathedral at 
 Mexico. Of its genuineness and authenticity there is no question. The figures and 
 hieroglyphic characters correspond' with those in other paintings made by this ancient 
 family. Its genuineness was admitted by Botturini, who obtained it from the native 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 97 
 
 Indians, and. it has ever since received full credit for being what it professes, from 
 all who have given the subject any attention. Its authenticity has been placed beyond 
 a doubt, in the mind of the writer, by the verification of Mr. Bullock himself, a 
 gentleman personally known to him as one entitled to the respect and confidence of 
 the community. With full and unhesitating faith, then, the writer begs to submit it 
 to the study of the reader, as a subject deserving much attention, and about which 
 comparatively little is yet known. 
 
 The native Mexicans stated it to be a chart delineating the entrance into America 
 of the Aztec race, and a narrative of their slow and polemic journey southwardly 
 into Anahuac. 
 
 It commences, as they alleged, with the departure of their ancestors from an 
 island. 
 
 The drawing begins by exhibiting an enclosure, intended to designate the boundary, 
 of a narrow passage of water, in the centre of which is an island, and from 
 this island they reached the main land in a boat, as is here portrayed. On the 
 island are six hieroglyphics, each denoting the word "calMf or "house," surrounding the 
 emblem of a tumulus erected for worship. Beneath are two figures, male and female, 
 the latter being distinguished by the two small tresses resembling horns, as in the 
 mythological painting of the age of famine. Attached to the female is an emblem 
 used heraldically, and points her out as one of the " children of the sun," — a title 
 claimed equally by the Hindoos, ancient Egyptians, and Peruvian Incas. 
 
 Here it were well to notice how distinctly it is shown that the immigration into 
 America of this civilized family, was from an island in a narrow passage of water. 
 Search the continent on all its coasts, and no such place is to be found except at 
 Behring's Straits, which have been already described. Is there not, then, additional 
 proof in confirmation of the opinion, that this passage was that which facilitated the 
 peopling of America from the nations of Asia. [See Appendix, note C] 
 
 The next hieroglyphic is a cartouche, enclosing the zodiacal sign of Tecpatl, 
 " silex^ or " knife/'' — accompanied by a ring denoting " a year." From this we 
 learn that their progress as far as the place indicated by the conical figure next to 
 it, occupied a year from the day they landed, which was the day of the month 
 known by the name Tecpatl. Z 
 
98 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 The large conical figure, marked "3" by Botturini, is the hieroglyphic denoting 
 die building of a town. The emblem, phonetically giving the name of this place, 
 is comprehended within a cartouche, and answers to the name Colhuacan. Whether 
 these conical figures have any reference to the tumuli or pyramidal structures yet 
 remaining, is a topic for the fancy and reflection of the reader. From the borders 
 of the coast, foot-prints point out the progressive steps of their travels. 
 
 We then come to a row of eight objects, each giving the word colli, or 
 M house." To these arc attached various figures, connected with a human form. The 
 centre emblem is the phonetic hieroglyphic giving the name of the person represented; 
 and the group would then mean, the house or family of each individual having the 
 name there portrayed. From this we may gather the inference, that at least eight 
 PROMINENT tribes constituted the race which is here designated. 
 
 Following on the traces of their footsteps, we next come to four persons standing 
 erect, as though on their march. These arc supposed to represent the family of 
 the emperor, under whose guidance the. journey is taken. In advance marches the 
 chief, who is borne upon the shoulders of one of the race. The phonetic symbol 
 over his head, designates him by the name Cohuatl, or " serpent." Behind him 
 follows, probably, his eldest son, denominated as it seems, Cuauh-Cohuatl. Behind 
 him again follows a person, whom 31. Botturini has named " Qu rtzalitl; — and the 
 rear is brought up by a female, whom we recognize as the same discovered on the 
 island. The lady's name is said to have been Chimalnuin. She seems on the 
 painting to be carrying her full share of their burden, for the sack on her shoulder 
 is equally large with that of the others. 
 
 Coming from so cold a country as that of Behring's Straits, they must have 
 travelled through regions of bleak and barren soil, where vegetation must have been 
 sparse and stunted in its growth. To prove the correctness of the position taken by 
 the Mexican natives, that their ancestors came from the far north, a singular symbol 
 next presents itself in this map. It is none other than a large tree, severed into 
 two parts, with a man's arms in vain endeavoring to span around the stump. Here 
 then, they for the first time had come far enough south to meet large trees; forming 
 so striking a contrast with those they had passed, as to be worthy of note in tho 
 delineation of their progress. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. «J9 
 
 Attached to this tree are five rings, or balls, denoting their stay for five years 
 at this place. The symbol beneath the line connecting these five annular emblems, 
 is supposed to mark the establishment of their empire in that place, and to indicate 
 the throne of the emperor. Around and in front of this seat, are five figures 
 partaking of fruit from two vessels in their midst, one of which is empty, the other, 
 full. From this is readily inferred their arrival at a fruitful soil, which they had 
 thus far sought for in vain. Two foot-prints, however, change the scene, and tears 
 of sadness are depicted on the faces of the council there assembled. Perhaps the 
 cause may be found in the interpretation of the hieroglyphics above. There we 
 notice the same houses or families, we find portrayed as constituting the race on 
 their leaving Colhuacan. Most probably a quarrel ensued, for we find six of 
 these families in council, and the other two, in discussion — one apparently in authority; 
 the other in submission and in tears. The last, it will be noticed, too, here departs 
 from the race into banishment, as his footsteps indicate. The monarch also, presiding 
 both in the council of feasts, and of sadness, will be recognized as the figure named 
 Cohuatl when on the march. 
 
 Again advancing, we find the four prominent figures of Chimalman, &-c, on 
 their march. Then we are presented with the torture and sacrifice of three persons, 
 apparently prisoners, clad in skins, and probably Indians taken in battle. The 
 emblems above them may perhaps indicate the tribe from which the prisoners were 
 made, whose name gave the phonetic hieroglyphic of the Aztec word for eagle. It 
 will be seen that the eagle is in subjection to the third of the eight tribes forming 
 this Aztec race. 
 
 We then come to a land where they dwelt for many years. It commences 
 with the emblems of two cities, named Chocayan, meaning "sadness," and Cohuatl- 
 camac, meaning " the serpent-god." The subsequent figures are cartouches delineating 
 the number of years they remained here, and the zodiacal signs of the days of the 
 month on which they made any slight remove. For instance, we find that after two 
 years, on the day Colli, " house," they moved to a spot, where they remained three 
 years; whence on the day Tochtli, "hare," they again resumed their journey; — and 
 so on through this series of emblems. As they leave this country, we find them 
 
100 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 passing a lake, rudely represented by a fish swimming beneath reeds or rushes within 
 an enclosure. Their journeyings now became slow. They were in a pleasant country, 
 and as will be seen by the following series of hieroglyphics, they remained here 
 many years. Thence they slowly marched still more southwardly, here and there 
 building a town as denoted by the various emblems on their route. In their 
 progress we come to a town, with the emblems of battle surmounting it, and at its 
 sides, an altar bearing a skull, indicating the mortality which there ensued, and the 
 trophy of victory which was raised. After seventeen years, we find them passing a 
 place named by Botturini, from the figure here portrayed, Azcapotzalco. Thirty-four 
 years more brought them to Acalhuacan. Thirty-seven more, to Ecatipu. They 
 afterwards passed a rapid river, as the waves indicate, and it was bordered by 
 canes, or rushes, [query, Mississippi?] Subsequently they reached Cohuatlitlan, or 
 "serpent-town." Here, for the first time, we find the aloe, or agave, growing, and 
 at this place, after a few years, we find the seventh of the eight Aztec tribes 
 deserted the race. A little farther we notice a curious picture, and which clearly 
 denotes their southern progress. There is a Mexican plant, growing much like a 
 pine-apple, the fruit of which, at a certain stage of ripeness, is plucked by the 
 natives at the approach of evening. The gathering of the fruit leaves a large cup, 
 formed by the thick leaves of the plant, into which the juices flow freely during 
 the night. In the morning this juice is drank with avidity by the natives through 
 reeds, or is taken out and prepared into an agreeable beverage. Their custom is 
 here clearly pictured as having been practised by this race on their march. At the 
 figure "16," they constructed Tecpaiocan, which place, the map tells us, became, in 
 twenty-eight years, the seat of a dreadful battle. This is particularly emphasized by 
 the emblem of the sword, shield, and surrounding foot-prints. At "17" and "18," 
 we find the outlines of large tumuli enclosing a hatchet. To these Botturini has 
 annexed the name of Pantitlan. At "20" they erected a large town on the 
 borders of a lake, and to this they gave the name Chapoltepec, as is denoted by the 
 hieroglyphic of "the grass-hopper." Here they remained many years, for we find 
 the same place repeated at the end of the series of zodiacal signs, and it is there 
 recorded as the seat of a fierce war, resulting in the capture of many Indians. 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 101 
 
 Some of these it would seem were exposed to fires, and others were led captive 
 by the victorious Aztecs to receive the condemnation of their emperor. This part of 
 the map lands them fairly in Mexico, according to the tradition of the natives; and 
 displays the various judgments inflicted on the prisoners they brought captive from a 
 more northern country. 
 
 It were impossible at the present day to exhibit the positions of the various 
 towns, which we find delineated on this map. No doubt the traveller through the 
 north-western part of the United States, passes them constantly. Here he meets the 
 ruins of an ancient city, of which nought remains, save its ramparts, and " high 
 places," and there, the lofty tumulus, and range of walls, point out to him the 
 spot, where sacrifices were once offered, or beacon fires were lighted. The names, 
 however, and glory of those places have departed, and they are an enigma to the 
 world. This map, no doubt, gives us the appellation of the most prominent cities, 
 but to locate them with certainly were beyond the power of the present age. 
 
 2A 
 
102 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN 
 
 A retrospect of the evidence, thus far presented to the reader, exhibits the 
 following chain of incident: 
 
 L On the discovery of America, two distinct races were found inhabiting the 
 continent; — one civilized, comprehending the Mexicans and Peruvians, with 
 their neighbors ; — the other, savage and nomadic, embracing all the families 
 of the North American Indians. The civilized inhabitants came originally 
 from the north, where they constructed the ancient remains yet existing; 
 and they were expelled thence by the subsequent immigration, and successive 
 conquests of the Indian tribes, who came from the north of Asia, and 
 appear to be of Mongolian origin. 
 
 II. From a careful examination of the language, cranial formation, mythology, 
 hieroglyphic system, astronomy, architecture, and customs of this civilized 
 family, we derive ample evidence that they came from Southern Asia; and 
 as these analogies correspond closely with customs common to Hindostan 
 and ancient Egypt, they must have descended from some race which 
 imparted to those two Oriental regions their peculiar ideas and manners. 
 
 HI. Ancient Egypt, and Hindostan, are shown to have had their territories 
 invaded by one powerful family, who established in both countries their 
 peculiar astronomical science: — built temples, and pyramids: — covered them 
 with hieroglyphic carvings: erected walled cities: — and whose remains yet 
 form a splendid monument of their greatness. 
 
 IV The early annals of this race are clearly presented in the pages of the 
 inspired volume. Profane historians too, corroborate that narrative, and give 
 more minute information as to the successive migrations of this warlike and 
 great family. From them we learn, that after the apportionment of the 
 various descendants of Noah to different territorial possessions, in the day9 
 of Peleg, the Cuthite family were insubordinate, seizing on the property 
 
OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. 103 
 
 of their neighbors. They increased so greatly in power, as to surpass all 
 other nations: — and after their dispersion by the Almighty, a portion of 
 them invaded and overran Egypt. There they erected a splendid empire, 
 from which they were subsequently expelled, to the number of two hundred 
 and forty thousand persons. Thence they are traced by history in a 
 north-easterly direction to Palestine, and here all records of them are lost. 
 
 V. The families of the earth, then existing, were pastoral and peaceful in their 
 habits, except this race: but a journey through these nations, who had been 
 formerly conquered by the Cuthites, must necessarily have been polemic. 
 They must have forcibly provided for their very sustenance. As they were 
 the only race recorded as being skilful in mural defences, wherever these 
 very ancient remains are found, circumstantial evidence is presented of the 
 primitive migrations of this people. They have thus been traced,- as also 
 by the relics found in the tumuli, and their peculiar zodiacal signs, to 
 the north of Siberia. Here all positive traces are lost. 
 
 VI. The geographical position of Behring's Straits, admits the possibility of 
 emigration from Asia to America. Various circumstances too, are recorded, 
 which strongly urge the probability of early intimacy between the inhabitants 
 of both continents at that point and that that was the place which opened 
 the path of access to the New World from the Asiatic continent. 
 
 VII. The Aztec map, prefixed to this volume, confirms the statement of the annals 
 of the Mexican race, that their original emigration was from the north of 
 America; and points out their entrance to have been through the inlet before 
 alluded to. 
 
 Vm. In the civilized aboriginal race of America, we find traces of the very 
 language of the Cuthite race. Curious resemblances are detected in cranial 
 formation. Their mythology, of which some instances have been given, 
 offers strong testimony as to original unity. They possessed the same 
 
104 AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN, ETC. 
 
 system of hieroglyphic inscription. Their astronomical divisions of time, and 
 zodiacal signs, are one and the same. The same genius and peculiar 
 taste mark their various specimens of architecture. And, finally, in many 
 points their customs were alike. 
 
 Do THESE INCIDENTS FORM A WELL CONNECTED CHAIN? 
 
 The evidence adduced is no hypothesis. It is based on the testimony of the 
 most credible witnesses, whose names and works have been cited in their respective 
 places. The author omits any argument on the premises, and deems it unnecessary. 
 With the simple statement, then, of recorded incident, he submits the case to the 
 candid and courteous consideration of the reader; and to him he tenders a respectful, 
 and, probably, final farewell. 
 
 Finis. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A 
 
 VIDE PAGE 16. 
 
 Aztalan, Atalan, or Atlan, was the name of the country at the north whence this civilized 
 race was expelled. The word is derived from atl, "water," and an, "near." The country was 
 probably so named from its proximity to large bodies of water. Where do we find a region, 
 better deserving the name, than that comprehended between the great Lakes of the United States, 
 and the Mississippi, Ohio, and Alleghany rivers? 
 
 Again, this region was named Tbocolhuacan, "near or in the midst of the houses of God." 
 This word is derived from Teotl, "God," colli, "house," and «huac-an, "near or in the the midst 
 of." The territory, within the bounds before enumerated, is covered with the vestiges of the 
 teocallis, high places, and tumuli, forming their previous abodes. 
 
10S APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 VIDE PAGE 19. 
 
 There was a difference in the character, manners, and even language, of this civilized family of 
 Mexico and Peru. This, however, argues nothing against their unity of origin. To confirm the 
 reader in the truth of this position, his friend, James Laket, Esq., M. D., has allowed the author 
 to append an article having some bearing on this point. 
 
 A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF THE SUPERIORITY OF MAN IN THE NORTHERN 
 HEMISPHERE, OVER THOSE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. 
 
 "Earlh, on whose lap a thousand nations tread, 
 
 And Ocean brooding her prolific bed; 
 
 Night's sable orb, blue pole and silvery zones, 
 
 Where other planets circle other suns; 
 
 One Mind inhabits, one diffusive Soul, 
 
 Wields the hrgc limbs and mingles with the whole." 
 
 " A part how small of this terraqueous globe is tenanted by man." 
 
 Man is modified and affected by the air he breathes, and by the exhalations from the earth, on 
 which he treads. The earth, as a planet, is globular, and of course her surface is convex; but 
 as a human habitation, she presents an infinitely diversified concavo-convex exterior, giving to the 
 different sections of her surface unequal portions of light, heat and shade. These apparently small 
 causes have produced great effects upon men of the same stock. Hence we see very different 
 men springing from the same Caucasian race, and lying in the same latitude as the French and 
 Hollanders, the English and Irish, &c. &c. Even a slight shade of difference is perceptible between 
 the people of different districts of the same country, where the area of these districts or townships 
 does not exceed six miles square. I believe the cause of this difference to be the exhalations from 
 the earth, and these exhalations vary either in quantity or quality on every square mile of land. 
 
 The western hemisphere of our planet, stretching from South Shetland to the north pole, has 
 been open to the enterprise and observation of Europeans for only a short period of time, a little 
 more than three centuries. From Behring's Straits to those of Magellan, is the most extended 
 continuity of land; or the longest land path that can be traced on the earth's surface. Our new 
 
APPENDIX. 109 
 
 continent exceeds the eastern or old continent in length, but falls far short of it in breadth, 
 furnishing much less intertropical land; the American tomd zone being mostly made up of water. 
 May not this be the cause of the lower degree of heat in our hemisphere, and the consequent 
 absence of elephants, lions, and tigers, in our torrid zone? 
 
 But let us examine the native and naturalized man of America: 
 
 There is a great difference between the northern and southern hemisphere of America: nearly 
 all the science and wealth being engrossed by the former. 
 
 Nature appears to have wrought upon her most stupendous scale on the southern continent. 
 There her largest and longest rivers flow, there she has spread her most ample plains, and reared 
 her highest and most majestic mountains: — why, then, are her men and land animals inferior to 
 those of the north? They certainly are, and this would appear a paradox, were it wholly 
 confined to America. But the same comparative inferiority exists in South Africa, and Australia; 
 that is, they are inferior to North Africa and North Asia. 
 
 The temperate zones are said to be the best seats for civilization and science; and we have no 
 authentic history of any powerful nation situated wholly within the limits of the burning zone. 
 The young nations of Brazil, Columbia, and Guatimnla, have not, as yet, disproved this assertion. 
 They are young as independent nations, but nearly a century older as colonial settlements than the 
 United States. The intense heat of the torrid zone is supposed to enervate man and impair his 
 intellectual activity. The facts and arguments urged to sustain this position are easily found; they 
 are well known and need not be repeated. But a philosopher might reasonably inquire why the 
 equatorial regions which produce and perfect the elephant, the lion, and the tiger, should fail in 
 furnishing eminent men. Is it caused by heat alone? In the present infant state of science we 
 see as through a glass, darkly. The natives of the intertropical countries have been, and now are 
 inferior to those of the north temperate zone, but this inferiority may not always exist. The 
 influence of science and civilization has as yet been but partially tried upon the nations of the 
 torrid zone. It would be a gloomy prospect to the christian philanthropist, if he rested in the 
 belief, that this immense mass of land, that a broad belt of 47 degrees, of the most fertile soil on 
 the globe, was to be forever a prey to ignorance and barbarism. 
 
 But to leave the torrid zone, at present, let us compare the North with the South American 
 temperate zone. 
 
 The tropic of Cancer cuts the end of the Californian Peninsula, and crossing the continent, 
 passes through the middle of the Mexican Gulf. Between this line and the Arctic circle, as the 
 continent grows broader, lies a large mass of land, including four-fifths of Mexico, the United 
 States, and nearly all British, Danish, and Russian America. This tract contains an immense area 
 of land, capable of containing and sustaining 500,000,000 of people. Let us examine the South 
 American temperate zone. The tropic of Capricorn cuts from Rio Janeiro on the east, through the 
 northern end of Chili on the west, leaving to the south the greater part of the United Provinces, 
 or Buenos Ayres, all Chili and Patagonia, together with some unimportant islands, which go to 
 make up the southern temperate zone. Some of these countries have been settled by civilized men 
 for more than three centuries. The Rio de la Plata, the second river in size to any on the globe, 
 sweeps through the centre of this tract; — but where is the commercial wealth borne upon its waters? 
 
 The only countries that lie wholly within the temperate zone, are Buenos Ayres, Chili, and 
 
 Patagonia, and of these the two first only are settled by civilized, or half civilized, men. Patagonia 
 
 is abandoned to desolation and barbarism. Buenos Ayres is walered by the Plata and its tributaries. 
 
 2C 
 
110 APPENDIX. 
 
 This majestic river runs a course of 1,600 miles, the mean breadth of its basin is 800 miles 
 while it drains a surface of 1,280,000 square miles, equal to the whole of Europe, exclusive of 
 Russia. I repeat, that these provinces have been settled for a century longer than the United 
 States, but how will the former compare with the latter? 
 
 "What is the present situation of La Plata? Low enough in industry, intellect, and morals. 
 The soil of Buenos Ayres is little cultivated, and the mind of its men still less. The natives of 
 these provinces have, as yet, manifested but a small degree of that intelligence, enterprise, and 
 ardent energy, so necessary, and supposed to be inseparable from a young nation. Most of the 
 leading men who freed them from the yoke of Spain were foreigners. 
 
 The English made conquests on the banks of the Plate in 1805 and 6, but were finally expelled 
 in 1807. But the commander in this contest with the English was a Frenchman, (Liniers.) All, or 
 nearly all, the officers, engineers, and planners of the battles, and who defeated General John 
 Whitlocke in 1807, were Europeans. 
 
 Early in 1808 the English government fitted out a formidable armament to renew the invasion, 
 to conquer and hold this immense country, but the fleet and army were diverted from this destination 
 by the revolution of Old Spain. The result of the war in Old Spain, was the independence of 
 Buenos Ayres, the people of which have enjoyed it nominally for about thirty years. But they 
 have not brought forth the fruits of independence, peace and prosperity. They have degenerated 
 from even the Spanish character, and are well described in the following extract from Flint's 
 Geography: 
 
 "In this delicious climate, and on this luxuriant soil, the people degenerate to demi-savages, and 
 are ignorant, indolent, and miserable. They live in mud cottages, and gaming is their predominant 
 passion." — Vol. II. page 163. 
 
 During the American embargo in 1S08, some English merchants undertook to make up for the 
 loss of the custom of the United States, by opening a market in Buenos Ayres. They sent several 
 cargoes of carpenter and joiner's tools, together with a large quantity of rat-traps, to the river 
 Plate, thinking these articles would find a quick sale, as the people were sadly in need of houses, 
 and the towns on that river were infested with rats. But they could neither sell their tools nor 
 traps. 
 
 The stupidity and indolence of the people were hopeless and helpless. They did not know the 
 use of the broad-axe, plane, or hand-saw, and had no desire to learn. None of the natives had 
 ingenuity sufficient to set a rat-trap, although their houses were overrun with vermin! I believe 
 these facts were given in, under oath, to a committee of the House of Commons, and published in 
 the London papers early in 1812. 
 
 It is hoped that they have improved since 1808, but still they are immeasureably behind their 
 Mexican brethren. Before their revolution they had colleges, but no printing presses. 
 
 The history of Chili shows that the Hispanio-American has degenerated there. The natives of 
 the southern section of this country, the Araucanians, have never been conquered — they still preserve 
 their savage independence. This has been urged to prove the equality in talents and energy of the 
 savage inhabitants of the southern zone. But this only proves the rapid degeneracy of the 
 descendants of the Spanish settlers. The European Spaniards conquered Peru and the north of 
 Chili, with far less trouble than the Roman legions had in subduing South Britain. The Roman 
 Eagle did not perch upon the Highlands of Scotland, but was she stayed in her flight by fear? 
 
APPENDIX. in 
 
 By the fear of the fierce, but naked barbarians of that naked and barren country? No! The 
 masters of the finest countries on the globe did not want that rugged region; they threw a wall 
 across the island, and thus prevented their painted enemies from passing to invade their southern 
 settlements, and the Picts, like the Araucanians, remained unconquered and uncivilized. The ancient 
 Mexicans were superior to the ancient inhabitants of Peru and Chili. Cortez had a more bloodv 
 struggle, a longer campaign, and found fiercer foes to encounter and conquer, than were the Peruvians, 
 or any of those who fell beneath the sword of the illiterate Pizarro. As the Mexicans and 
 Peruvians descended from the same people, the superiority of the former in the sixteenth centurv 
 was the effect of climate, as will be shown hereafter. 
 
 The Spanish soldiers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries failed in their attempts to 
 conquer the savage tribes of South Chili; true, but these degenerate troops were different from those 
 who followed the free-booting, bloody banners of Cortez and Pizarro. 
 
 Besides, to conquer a barren country for the king of Spain is a different thing from conquering 
 and robbing rich countries, like Peru and Mexico, abounding in gold and silver. In the former 
 rase the soldier fought for his king, in the latter for himself. 
 
 That the Araucanians remain unconquered is more owing to their poverty than their prowess. 
 
 They are, however, greatly superior to the South Africans, who are the next in order. 
 
 South Africa. The South African temperate zone extends from Capricorn to the Cape of 
 Good Hope, passing through about 11 degrees of latitude, including a vast territory of unequal 
 breadth. 
 
 The Cape was doubled by that adventurous Portuguese, Vasco de Gama, in 1497, but was not 
 settled by his countrymen. The Dutch founded Cape Town about two centuries ago, [1650.] 
 Before the close of the seventeenth century, they were joined by many of the fugitive French 
 Protestants, who found the southern hemisphere a refuge from religious tyranny. Here were united 
 the Dutch Republicans and the French Huguenots, the same kind of people who, in the same 
 century, planted the New-Netherlands on the American shore. This might be called the best sort 
 of seed-wheat with which to plant a colony. We shall soon see what a crop it produced. 
 
 The English conquered the colony about the commencement of the present century, [January, 
 1806,] and still hold it. But here we find the same causes to produce the same effects, in Africa 
 as well as in America. South is inferior to North Africa, and that inferiority is much more 
 apparent and striking than that of South to North America. 
 
 The original inhabitants of South Africa are far below those of the north, and the European 
 settlers there have strangely degenerated. Cape Town, the capital of the colony, has a population 
 of about 20,000. Cape Colony includes an area of 120,000 square miles, a great portion of which 
 consists of mountains of naked sand-stone, or of the great Karroo plains, whose hard, dry soil is 
 hardly ever moistened by a drop of rain, so that seven-tenths of the territory never exhibits the 
 least appearance of verdure. 
 
 The population of this province is in a deplorable state of degeneracy, as the following extract 
 from Murray's excellent Encyclopaedia of Geography will show: 
 
 "The Dutch farmers, or boors, of whom grazing forms almost the sole occupation, hold very 
 extensive premises, reaching often several miles in every direction. Yet their spacious domains do 
 not prevent frequent boundary feuds, &c. &c. * * * * 
 
112 APPENDIX. 
 
 ■ 
 "The boor having covered this extensive possession with flocks, and herds, resigns himself to 
 supine indolence, devolving the whole labor on his slaves, who are usually Hottentots. He draws 
 from his farm neither wine, fruit, nor vegetables; nor does he make his herds yield milk, or butter. 
 The pipe never quits his mouth, except to take his sopie, or glass of brandy, and to eat three 
 meals of mutton a day, soaked in the fat of the large tailed sheep. The mistress of the mansion, 
 in like manner, remains almost immoveable on her chair, with her coffee on a table always before 
 her. The daughters sit round with their hands folded rather like articles of furniture than like 
 youthful and living beings. 
 
 "A teacher is usually employed; but, in addition to his proper functions, he is obliged to employ 
 himself in the most menial offices." Vol. III. page 6G. 
 
 The filthy and abominable habits of the Hottentots are too well known, and have been too 
 often described to render a repetition necessary. Suffice it to say, that the Hottentot has no equal 
 in debasement and degradation, in any part of this huge peninsula north of the tropic of Cancer. 
 How can South Africa compare with North Africa! In the north was the ancient republic of 
 Carthage, whose fleets swept the seas, whose merchants were princes. She was for a long time 
 Queen of the Ocean, and a formidable rival of Rome herself. Her ill-requited general defeated one 
 Roman army after another, and held military possession of the Italian Peninsula for fifteen years. 
 No ancient or modern general ever did as much with so small means as he. Scipio and Caesar were 
 sustained by the Roman Senate, but Hannibal was betrayed and ruined by the senate of Carthage. 
 
 North Africa embraced Egypt in the northeast, which once contained a large share of the learning, 
 art and science of the infant world. North Africa has produced great generals, scholars and 
 statesmen. Most, if not all the literature of ancient Carthage has perished from the earth. What 
 little is known of her history has come down to us from ancient Rome, her haughty rival, and 
 dastardly and deadly enemy. 
 
 But what of South Africa? History has not recorded, nor romance nor fable feigned the 
 existence of a single civilized nation south of the line. The North African has tamed the elephant 
 and the camel, — he has trained the former to war, and of the latter he has made a beast of burden. 
 So faithful, swift, and sure has the camel been to his master, that he is called the ship of the desert. 
 The North Africans were expert horsemen, — the best cavalry in ancient and modern times; — the 
 South Africans were not, and are not. I believe they have neither tamed the horse nor the elephant. 
 When Egypt was full of riches, South Africa was peopled with savages. If these savages had 
 possessed the sagacity and energy of the North American Indians, they would have come down in 
 armed bands from the head waters of the Nile for invasion and plunder. The wealth of the Pharaohs 
 would then have changed hands. It has been said, that invasions seldom or never come from tho 
 south, but it is a mistake. 
 
 Invading armies have proceeded from North Africa — and their march has been to the north and 
 east. Sacred history informs us of Zerah, the Ethiopian, who invaded Palestine with a force of 
 1,000,000 of men. Owing to a want of figures in the early ages, the carelessness of copyists, and 
 the credulity of commentators, this incredible number still remains in our Bibles. The mistake in 
 numbers, however, does not lead any man to doubt the fact, or deny the inference drawn from it. 
 Every one believes that Xerxes invaded Greece, — but none but school-boys believe that he brought 
 with him 5,000,000, 3,000,000, or even 1,700,000 soldiers. He came in great force, but not as a 
 ooet says: "With half mankind embattled by his side." 
 
APPENDIX. 113 
 
 The African general, some 700 or 800 years before Christ, invaded Judea with an army of, no 
 doubt, 100,000 combatants. He must have marched a great distance, and nothing but a certain 
 decree of civilization, foresight, and industry could have supported such an army. The same restless 
 spirit of conquest that led this black Alexander and his warlike Ethiopians to Asia, would have led 
 them to South Africa, had there been any thing there to invite an invader. 
 
 Australia. Passsing the line of the southern tropic east from Africa, we strike about the centre 
 of New-Holland. This immense mass of land appears so very unlike any other, that it might 
 almost be said to belong to another planet. 
 
 "It is in New-Holland," says Mr. Barron Field, "where it is summer with us, where it is winter 
 in Europe, and vice versa; where the barometer rises before bad weather, and falls before good; 
 where the north is the hot wind, and the south the cold; where the fields are fenced with mahogany, 
 and myrtle trees burnt for fuel; where the swans are black, and the eagles are white, * * * * 
 and where the cherry grows with the stone on the outside." &c. &c. I have omitted a number of 
 the learned Mr. Field's specifications, who, it seems, was in New-Holland at the time he penned them. 
 He has given us nothing very marvellous, excepting the rise and fall in the barometer; — and it 
 would have been much more satisfactory, if he had favored us with the figures, showing exactly the 
 average weight of that part of the earth's atmosphere that presses the surface of this section of the 
 southern zone. If the mercury rises in rainy weather, and falls in fair, it is a miracle indeed!! 
 
 I leave the white eagles, black swans, and oviparous moles, &c, to the professed naturalist. It 
 is the wild man of Australia that we are to examine. The native New-Hollander is a specimen of 
 man in his lowest, rudest form. These people were found totally unacquainted with planting or 
 sowing, the' use of tools, and the breeding of tame animals. Those on the coast lived, or rather 
 existed, by hunting and fishing. Those in the interior lived on the spontaneous roots and berries, 
 and prolonged a miserable existence by devouring worms, and grubs, that are found in the trunks of 
 trees. Caterpillars, serpents, and spiders enter largely into an Australian bill of fare. 
 
 Dr. Good observes of the natives that: "they have no aptitude and learn nothing; that all the 
 efforts of the British government, aided by the missionaries, together with the kindest treatment, for 
 nearly fifty years, have had little or no effect upon the people." 
 
 They have nothing that can be called war, yet their whole life is one continuous fight; they even 
 practise single combat with their rude spears. All who have seen or written upon the natives of 
 this region, agree, that hitherto, it has been impossible to wean them from their barbarous mode of 
 life. 
 
 Van Dieman's Land is an island lying south of New-Holland, between 40° 42' and 43° 43' of 
 south latitude. It is about the size of Scotland, but is full fifteen degrees nearer to the equator. 
 This latitude (40°) is the most mild and productive of any parallel in the northern hemisphere, but 
 neither maize nor tobacco are compatible with the climate of Van Dieman's Land. 
 
 According to Hassel, the natives of this island amount to about 1,500, and are, if possible, in 
 a more degraded state than even those of New-Holland. They cannot fish, nor make the rudest 
 canoes, but convey themselves in wretched rafts over any water they are obliged to cross. 
 
 Now, how would Ireland, or Scotland, compare with Van Dieman's Land? Not the Scotland 
 and Ireland of the present day ; but when these provinces were peopled by pagans, when the ancient 
 
 2D 
 
lit APPENDIX. 
 
 inhabitants painted their bodies and were unacquainted with letters. Even then they were at a 
 great distance from the debasement of the Australian. No place can be found between the equator 
 and the north pole, where men are so degraded and stupid, as in Van Dieman's Land. The South 
 American can be compared with the North American, who is his superior — the South African can 
 be compared with the North African, who is still more his superior; but with what northern race 
 shall we compare the Australian? In the lowest deep of moral and intellectual imbecility and 
 barbarism in which the southern temperate zone is plunged, the natives of New-Holland have found 
 a "lower deep" of hopeless and helpless brutality. Far below the Esquimaux, the Laplander, or 
 the Greenlander, they do not seem susceptible of improvement. It is far from certain that they are 
 capable of cultivation to the extent of obtaining a knowledge of figures and the letters of the 
 alphabet. 
 
 I have affirmed the inferiority of the entire Austral zone, but will observe, at the risk of some 
 repetition, that some portions and sections of that zone are less degraded than others. South 
 America is superior to South Africa, and the latter is superior to Australia. Of the native South 
 Americ-an nations, the Araucanians, were superior in stubborn bravery to the others; and in physical 
 and intellectual energy, the New-Zealanders stand at an immeasurable distance above the natives of 
 New-Holland and Van Dieman's Land. ■ 
 
 Geographers tell us of some islands in the neighborhood of New-Holland that are black, barren 
 and humid, villi larisc lakes in their centres. I will hazard a conjecture, that such is the case as 
 it respects New-Holland; that she has large lakes in her central regions; and that if those regions 
 are ever explored by scientific Europeans, they will find the middle of New-Holland to contain the 
 lowest land on the globe — that is, nearer to the earth's centre than the country around the Caspian 
 Sea. 
 
 A little more than half a century has elapsed since the first colony of whites was planted at 
 Port Jackson, and now the united population of New-Holland and Van Dieman's Land exceeds 
 100,000. A settlement was made on Swan River in 1829, under the patronage of the British 
 government, called Western Australia. The government made regular grants of land to rich capitalists, 
 who took out with them free English laborers; but the colony does not flourish. It is supposed 
 that the greater comparative prosperity of the penal colonies in the neighborhood, is owing to the 
 cheap compulsory labor of convicts. 
 
 Labor is neither cheap nor compulsory in the new states of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, in 
 America; yet they are in a flourishing condition. 
 
 The Swan River settlement has a population of about 3,000. Gov. Stirling says: — 
 
 "For some time back, registers of the weather have been kept at King George's Sound, and 
 at Perth, the capital of Swan River; and hereafter it will be possible to ascertain with precision 
 the ranges of the temperature, the barometrical pressure, and the degree of moisture in these 
 districts compared with other countries. * * * * * In the months of Januarv, 
 
 February, and March, the heat and drought are as disagreeable as they can be without affecting 
 health." 
 
 Still this worthy governor thinks that this colony will, in time, become a wealthy and prosperous 
 possession of the crown. Be this as it may, we are under great obligations to him for introducing 
 the thermometer and barometer, and establishing registers of the weather in this remote region. We 
 shall soon be able to set aside or sustain the paradoxical assertion of the learned Mr. Field, who 
 says that the barometer rises before rain, and falls before fair weather. 
 
APPENDIX. 115 
 
 If Mr. Field's statement be confirmed, we may well suppose that the Australians have followed 
 literally the advice of the worthy Capt. Anthony Absolute— that is, that they have got an atmosphere 
 and sun of their own. 
 
 Perhaps enough has been said of the southern temperate zone, to establish its inferiority to the 
 corresponding zone of the north; let us, then, give a slight glance at the polar circles; and 
 compare the northern with the southern end of the earth. 
 
 The north frigid zone takes in a large quantity of land; and here the pole itself was approached 
 by Capt. Parry as near as seven degrees. The arctic circle includes the northern part of the 
 Russian empire, and part of Danish and British America. It is supposed to contain a land area 
 of 2,500,000 square miles; a good part of which is uninhabited and uninhabitable — still, some parts 
 of this circle are susceptible of cultivation. Barley and rye have ripened within the limits of the 
 arctic zone. It furnishes some valuable articles for commerce, and the Greenlanders and Laplanders 
 are industrious, contented and happy. Iceland, which verges upon this zone, has produced many 
 learned men, and the people of that island now are at a great remove from unlettered savages. 
 The hardy Russian hunters brave the climate of Spitzbergen; they remain during the darkness of 
 winter occupied in pursuing the seal and the walrus. Spitzbergen stretches over the line of 80° 
 north, — but under these hyperborean skies the English and Dutch whalemen fiercely disputed for the 
 possession of its bays. The latter founded the village of Smeerenberg, where they landed the whales 
 and extracted the oil; and it became so flourishing as almost to be considered a northern Batavia. 
 The English, Dutch, and American sailors waged war upon their gigantic game, until the circumjacent 
 sea was nearly fished out, and the surviving whales had deserted. The history of the northern 
 tvhale fishery is well known. 
 
 What has the antarctic circle compared with this? Little or nothing but dreary desolation. Mr. 
 Burke extols the intrepidity of American sailors, who chace the whales under the frozen serpent of 
 'he south; but at that time no American tar had entered the antarctic circle. 
 
 In describing the north and south polar regions, the author of the Encyclopaedia of Geography 
 has travelled out of his latitude, and taken strange ground. He has left the circumpolar regions of 
 the southern circle, and travelled down to the island of Tristan dAcunha!! This African islet is, in 
 the low latitude of 38 c , nearer to the equator than Madrid, Rome, Naples, or Lisbon. 
 
 " Yet," says the learned writer, " the bleak storms of a long winter, and its shores crowded 
 with the sea-elephant, the penguin, and the albatross, mark its affinity to the antarctic regions now 
 described." 
 
 This one fact would forever settle the question as to the superior fitness of the arctic over 
 the antarctic circle as an abode for man. The stern southern winter prevails down to as low 
 latitude as 38°, and marks the affinity of the islet above mentioned, to the frozen zone. Why, the 
 corresponding latitude of 38° north crosses in the midst and south of the land of the olive, the 
 orange and the vine. 
 
 Geographers tell us of 200,000 square miles of land in the southern circle, but this land is very 
 difficult to find on any map. It is said that the Russians discovered two islets in 1829 at 69° south 
 latitude, and named them Peter I., and Alexander I. These form the most southerly spots of land 
 yet known to exist. What Mr. Murray calls south polar islands, are wholly north of the limits 
 of the circumpolar zone; — they belong in fact to the southern section of the Austral temperate 
 zone, and are nowhere better described than in his recent excellent work. 
 
1IG APPENDIX. 
 
 "Though situated in a comparatively low latitude, which in the northern hemisphere admits of 
 habitation and culture, they are entirely dreary and desolate, buried in ice and snow, and not tenanted 
 by a single human being. Their shores, however, are more crowded with those huge amphibia., 
 whose rich coat of oil renders them a tempting prize to the whalemen. The walrus is here replaced 
 by the sea-elephant, a still huger creature, and richer in oil. • • • • • Here are likewise 
 legions of sea birds of gigantic size and peculiar form; among which the penguin and the albatross 
 are the most remarkable." 
 
 The above described are the Falkland Islands, South Shetland, and the New-Orkneys. The 
 former are about the latitude of London, — while the two latter groups are scarcely nearer to the 
 pole than the British Islands, after which they were named, yet they have the climate of Greenland 
 and Spitzbergen. There is no probability, and hardly a possibility, of their ever being settled by 
 an industrious, civilized population. 
 
 X'ir-Z<-til<inil. The natives of these islands are superior in size, strength, ingenuity and intellect 
 to the Oceanian negroes of New-Holland; they are supposed to belong to the Malay race of man. 
 
 They have been said to form an exception to the general low state of intellect and morals in 
 the Austral countries. They undoubtedly do to a certain extent; — but a careful examination will 
 show that the New-Zealander, although greatly superior to his Australian neighbors, is still unequal 
 to the natives of the northern zone. New-Zealand lies between 34° and 48° of south latitude, and 
 is about the size of Great Britain and Ireland. We are told that the partial civilization which has 
 dawned upon these people, has only "tended to develop in a still more frightful degree those furious 
 passions which agitate the breast of a savage. * * * All travellers agree that they are a noble 
 race of savages, although they are clearly proved, by the long residence among them of Colonel 
 Cruise and Mr. Earle, to be still cannibals." 
 
 "Each little society is actuated by the deepest enmity to all their neighbors; their daily and 
 nightly thought is to surprise, to attack, to exterminate them; and when they have gained that 
 guilty triumph, it is followed by the dire consummation of devouring their victims." 
 
 These savage cannibals kill and bake their victims and prisoners. All accounts agree in 
 representing them as the most disgusting and shameless men-eaters on the face of the earth. The 
 crew of the English ship Boyd was massacred and devoured by these barbarians in 1809. Since 
 that time several missionaries have shared the same fate. Since the introduction of the musket, 
 these ferocious cannibals have made a code of laws: — instead of confining, they kill and eat their 
 criminals! "In England, (said a New-Zealand chief to an English missionary,) you hang up your 
 thieves; — here we shoot and eat them. What is the difference between hanging and burying, and 
 shooting and eating ?"' 
 
 This monstrous propensity to eat human flesh is not, as has been affirmed, the result of 
 necessity — for "the soil produces, even spontaneously and plentifully, roots fitted for human food, 
 particularly those of a species of fern, which covers almost the whole country. Besides, these 
 people cultivate maize, yams, and potatoes, — they likewise breed swine in great abundance, and their 
 seas are filled with the finest fish. Their entire population being estimated at 150,000, which 
 averages only one for a square mile, must make provisions plenty, and leave no excuse for 
 cannibalism. Their resources for provisions are greater than were those of the Indians of Massachusetts 
 and Virginia, at the commencement of the seventeenth century. 
 
APPENDIX. 117 
 
 "Great diligence is exercised, and great pain endured in bestowing upon their skins the unnatural 
 ornament of tattooing; and the visages cf the chiefs are often entirely covered over with various 
 regular figures. This, however, is not affected without severe pain, causing even an attack of fever; 
 but to shrink in any degree from the operation is considered altogether derogatory to a manly spirit. 
 They have also a horrid art, by which the heads of their enemies, being dried in an oven, and 
 exposed to a stream of fresh air, are maintained in a state of perfect preservation." — Encyclopaedia 
 of Geography, Page 141, Vol. III. 
 
 Great efforts are making to civilize and christianize these fierce savages; but as yet, with very 
 doubtful success. Mr. Murray says: — "In the four church missions there are, under a regular course 
 of education, about 320 New-Zealanders, whose average age is sixteen years. When the hours 
 appointed for instruction in reading, writing and accounts are expired, the greater number of these 
 natives are employed in the mission, some in building, others as carpenters, and others in general 
 labor. * * * * We think the missionaries right in indulging the passion of the New-Zealanders 
 for English clothing. * * * * * * True it is that, until their European costume shall become 
 complete, (and perhaps even then,) they will look more noble in their mat-cloaks; but no barbarous 
 country was ever civilized till the people had adopted the costume of their conquerors." 
 
 It would be more correct to say, that no barbarous people were ever civilized before, or, without 
 being conquered. Before imposing their present mode of dress upon savages, it would be well if 
 the nations of Europe would lay aside or reform their uncomfortable and unnatural costume. 
 
 We do not consider the practice of tattooing, and the practice of drying and preserving the 
 heads of their enemies, however foolish the first, and barbarous the last may be, as proofs of 
 supereminence in barbarism. The tortures inflicted by fashion daily and unceasingly upon both sexes 
 in Christian countries, far exceed all the tattooing of all the South Sea savages that ever existed. 
 As to the baking and keeping the heads of their enemies, it is surpassed by exposing the dead 
 bodies of criminals hanging in chains, in civilized countries. No! these vices and follies mentioned 
 above they have in common with the great and civilized nations — but the peculiar, deep and 
 deplorable vice of the New-Zealander is his cannibalism. It would be difficult, if not impossible, 
 to produce parallel instances in the north, even in the arctic circle. Men, tortured by insufferable 
 hunger on a wreck at sea, have been known to cast "wolfish eyes" upon each other — and 
 conquering by degrees the strong repugnance felt at first for the horrid feast, have cast lots for 
 death, and saved their lives by feeding upon the body of a comrade. But man-eating seems to be 
 a matter of choice, not of necessity, with the New-Zealander. A chief of a village informed some 
 French officers, that he experienced extraordinary gratification in devouring a corpse, and informed 
 them that the brain was the most delicate bit, though the haunches were more substantial. 
 
 We look in vain among the barbarians of the north for this hyena disposition. European 
 Zealand, which gave her name to the South Sea Zealand, contained in former ages pirates of the 
 fiercest kind — robbers and sea-kings, but no cannibals. Western Europe has been peopled by pagans, 
 whose very deities were warlike, ferocious, and unpitying, like themselves; but Caesar found no 
 cannibals among the ancient inhabitants of Gaul and Britain. 
 
 We have dwelt rather longer upon the New-Zealanders, inasmuch as these fierce islanders appeal 
 to have more intellect then any other men in the same parallel in the southern hemisphere. Mr. 
 Gibbon indulged the pleasing hope, that New-Zealand might produce, at some future age, the Hume 
 
 <of the southern hemisphere. Unless greater success attends the efforts made for their civilization 
 
 2E 
 
118 APPENDIX. 
 
 that time must be very remote. All the labor of the most zealous missionaries to convert these 
 savages, to wean them from war and cannibalism, have hitherto been unavailing. 
 
 We have mentioned sufficient proofs of the inferiority of the people of the southern hemisphere; 
 ami we believe further, that the man of the north degenerates when transplanted to the south. 
 We have seen that the descendants of Dutchmen have degenerated in South Africa; but the posterity 
 of the same people have not degenerated, but greatly improved in New- York and New-Jersey. 
 
 That the Spaniards have degenerated at Buenos Ayres, is well known. The same may be said 
 of the Portuguese in Brazil and East Africa. It does not lessen the force of this fact, that both 
 nations in the Spanish Peninsula, have likewise degenerated. These nations rose before they fell — 
 the Buenos Ayreans have never risen, and of course they cannot fall, as they are constantly 
 prostrate. 
 
 Learning has flourished to some extent near the verge of the north frigid zone. Iceland and 
 and Lapland have had their learned men. Linmrus was reckoned among the hyperborean learned, but 
 who ever heard of the Australian learned? Whoever heard of Oceanean, or Buenos Ayrean, or 
 Chilian learned? In short, who ever heard of any native learning, art, or science between Capricorn 
 and the south pole? Great Britain alone, with her 2 1,000,000 of inhabitant?, and her 100,000 square 
 miles of land, (about the size of New-Zealand,) possesses and exercises more intellectual, moral, and 
 physical force than the- whole southern temperate zone, with her 5,000,000 of square miles of land, 
 and her uncounted millions of semi-barbarians, upon whose territory the sun never sets. 
 
 As far as we are acquainted with the zoology of the southern zone, its land animals are far 
 inferior to those of the north. The arctic circle is the home of the polar bear, (Ursus maritimus.) 
 an animal of prodigious size, strength and fierceness, the average weight of which is from 1,000 to 
 1,400 pounds. If the antarctic circle has any land animals, they have never been seen nor described 
 Dy any writer. We have an arctic, but no antarctic zoology. It may well be doubted, whether 
 there is any land animal south of Capricorn, equal in size and strength to the grizzly bear of the 
 Rocky Mountains of North America, or to his white brother of the arctic circle. 
 
 The lion of South Africa is less in size than the lion of the Lybian and Sahara deserts. The 
 Cape lion is said to be quite a cowardly animal; he is certainly smaller lhan the lion of the north. 
 The same is said to be true of the elephant, the leopard and all other land animals in the southern 
 section of the African Peninsula. The Romans and Carthagenians obtained their lions and elephants 
 wholly from the north. 
 
 The lion by way of eminence, that is, the lion of sacred and profane history, the lion of 
 romance and fable, the "king of beasts," who figures largely in the pages of Esop and La Fontaine, 
 holding levees and making speeches, is a very different animal from the lion of the Cape. 
 
 The land animals of New-Holland are contemptible in size, and apparently useless to man. 
 "The total absence of such animals as lions, tigers, deer, oxen, horses, and bears; in short, of all 
 those races spread over the rest of the world, is the most striking feature in the zoology of this 
 region. * * * * Nearly all the quadrupeds either actually belong, or are intimately related to 
 the Glires, (rats, moles, and mice,) of Linnreus. The largest of the outre animals is the Kangaroo.'' 
 
 The vast superiority of the northern zone over the southern in her men and land animals is 
 well established; — while the south is inferior to the north in terrestrial animals, she enjoys an 
 admitted superiority in her aerial, amphibious, and ocean animals. This marked difference between 
 the two hemispheres is well worthy of the attention of the natural historian. Probably five-sixths 
 
APPENDIX. 119 
 
 of the volume and weight of animal life upon our planet exists in the water, which is supposed to 
 cover three-fourths of its surface. The southern zone, then, abounding in water, must far exceed 
 that of the north in the amount of animal life. It has been mentioned, that she has much the 
 largest amphibious and aerial animals. Her birds and fish exceed, in general, those of the north in 
 size — and surpass them by all calculation in numbers. Few, if any, northern birds can compare 
 in size with the condor and albatross. Much, however, remains to be known upon this interesting 
 subject. If my theory be sustained, if men continue to degenerate, as I think it is proved that 
 they have degenerated then I say, the southern zone will be slow in producing a Linnaeus, a Buffon, 
 a Wilson, or Audubon. Having no authors of her own, her history must be written by foreigners. 
 Without going further into dry detail, we will take for granted the superiority of terrestrial 
 animal life in the north over that of the south. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED SUPERIORITY. 
 
 What can be the cause of this amazing difference between the two hemispheres? Is it owing 
 to moral or physical causes? or to a combination and mixture of both? Man is said to be the 
 only animal that possesses a frame at once so hardy and so flexible as to enable him to live and 
 increase and multiply his race from the arctic to the antarctic circle. No doubt that man is less 
 effected by mere physical causes than brute animals — and his change, or degeneracy is generally 
 attributed to moral causes, the influence of example, &c. &c. But has not the influence of these 
 causes been overrated? . If the descendants of intelligent Europeans degenerate when transplanted to 
 the south of Capricorn, and if this degeneracy has been constant and uniform from generation to 
 generation, for three centuries, and through every degree of longitude, can it be wholly owing to 
 surrounding circumstances, and what are called moral causes? 
 
 Empires have arisen and fallen in Europe, Asia and North Africa. Whole nations have 
 degenerated, have been prostrated, and have perished from the earth. 
 
 * " Empires die ! 
 Where now the Roman? Greek? 
 They stalk an empty name." 
 
 " Though half our learning is their epitaph." 
 
 Their existence and greatness are proved by their stupendous ruins, as well as by the scanty and 
 mutilated remains of their written records. But the nations of the southern hemisphere have never 
 degenerated! and why? They have had nothing to degenerate from. No writ of ejectment could 
 reach or effect a houseless pauper. Having had no grandeur they have had no decadence. The 
 causes of their imbecility are now to be sought for; these causes cannot be accidental, but must be 
 fixed and permanent. 
 
 To what cause or combination of causes shall we attribute the inferiority of the south? Shall 
 we adopt the ingenious but fanciful theory of Dr. Darwin, who supposed that the Moon was 
 projected from the southern hemisphere by a tremendous volcano at the commencement of creation? 
 
120 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Doctor's hypothesis, however, was not meant to meet this question at all; but to account for 
 the earth's inclination of axis to orbit; — the projection of so large a body as the moon having 
 
 "Turned oblique tho centric earth 
 Twice ten degrees and more." 
 
 - 
 
 This abrupt departure of the moon must have left the surface of the land that remained in a 
 very unlit state for cultivation. The cavity formerly filled by the moon was replaced by water; 
 the moon once occupied the space, " where now the south sea rolls her waste of tide." 
 
 The only objection to this theory is the extreme difficulty of ascertaining and fixing the date of 
 the event, and the total want of evidence of the fact. 
 
 Shall we suppose that the natives of the southern zone owe their hebetude and imbecility to 
 their remoteness from the seats of civilization and science? 
 
 Some have asserted, that as the cradle of the human race was situated in southern and south- 
 western Asia, the travelling tribes of the infant world found great difficulty in crossing the torrid 
 zone, and that they arrived at the Austral countries at a very late period. This is rather more 
 rational than the theory of lunar disruption and projection; but will it aid us in accounting for the 
 rapid degeneracy of the civilized European when transplanted to the southern hemisphere? For 
 about three centuries this emigration from Europe has been going on — this zone is approached by 
 water — no burning African desert intervening — and yet these emigrants have failed in civilizing the 
 natives and in preserving themselves from degeneracy. 
 
 It has been said that the degeneracy of the Dutch in South Africa is owing wholly to the vast 
 expansion of their territory, and to their unwise efforts to settle the whole of it, thereby scattering 
 themselves over an immense surface, and of course becoming savages. If this be indeed the true 
 and only cause, it will equally account for the barbarism of the Hlspanio-American at , Paraguay, and 
 of the Lusitanio-American, in the boundless regions of Brazil. But if dispersion be the true and 
 only cause, why does it not operate with equal energy on every part of the earth's surface? If 
 it be powerful and overwhelming in South Africa, why is it powerless in North-Africa, in Norway, 
 and in Sweden? If it barbarized the people of Brazil and Buenos Ayres, why has it had a 
 decidedly contrary effect upon the northern United States? 
 
 The causes enumerated having been shown insufficient, others must be sought for. 
 
 I assume an hypothesis, and give the following facts as the two leading, efficient, and constant 
 causes of the inferiority of the southern hemisphere: 
 
 1. The shortness of the southern summer, and the greater obliquity of the sun's rays in the 
 southern hemisphere. 
 
 2. The immense and disproportionate mass of water in that hemisphere. 
 
 It will be observed that both these causes lie far beyond the reach of man; that no human 
 power can reach them; indeed, the first cause, in point of order, being at a vast distance from the 
 earth itself; while the second presses its surface. 
 
 The man of the north enjoys about eight days more of the annual sun than his fellow man 
 of the south, which, allowing G,000 years for the age of the world, makes an aggregate of about 
 131 years for 180 generations of men. Astronomers tell ' us that the earth is more rapid in the 
 winter half of her orbit than in the summer, and of course the sun would apparently pass slower 
 
APPENDIX. 121 
 
 through the northern than the southern signs; the sun travels from the equator to Capricorn, and 
 returns from that tropic to the equator sooner, than from the equator to Cancer, and from the latter 
 tropic to the equator. In other words, the time between the vernal and autumnal equinox, exceeds 
 the time between the autumnal and vernal equinox, by about eight days. This is caused by the 
 earth's place in her elliptical orbit being nearer the sun in December than in June, by about 
 3,000,000 of miles; — the sun being in his perihelion in winter, and in his aphelion in summer, the 
 earth of course moves swifter in her orbit as she approaches the huge body of the sun. 
 
 The sun's disk is a little broader, and his apparent diameter greater, when in his perihelion, 
 than when in his aphelion. 
 
 His apparent diameter is 32' 35'' 6 in Decembei-, — and only 31' 31" in June. The sun not 
 being in the centre, but in what is called one of the lower foci of the orbit, increases the space 
 to be traversed while he remains north of the equator, that is, from the vernal to the autumnal 
 equinox. It is of little consequence, whether we call the greater length of the northern over the 
 southern season seven or eight days. 
 
 It is a familiar truth in philosophy, that a cause, however small, steadily, silently and incessantly 
 operating, must produce stupendous effects. The comparative shortness of the southern summer, and 
 the vast expanse of water in that hemisphere, — these united causes have been in operation for ages, 
 and have produced effects that have fixed it forever behind the northern hemisphere. 
 
 The nearness of the sun in December by about one-thirtieth of his mean distance, must increase 
 the intensity of his rays, and add to his temporary heat about one-fifteenth. 
 
 What has been the effect of the sun's proximity upon the large bodies of land' in New-Holland 
 and Buenos Ayres? Has it not scorched and parched the earth's surface, and in many respects, 
 rendered it an unpleasant abode for man? Such is the peculiar heat of the atmosphere in New- 
 Holland, that a conflagration caused by an incendiary convict, caused immense destruction. Buildings, 
 fences, and woods are rendered so highly combustible, that it is difficult to check the spread of a 
 fire. Immense losses have been sustained by the settlers and the British government in consequence. 
 I think this must be owing to the increase of the sun's heat, as his distance is lessened when he 
 approaches the southern tropic. It will be observed that the average annual heat is less here than 
 in the north — yet. the inferior fertility is not wholly owing to that alone. There are, doubtless, 
 
 many other minor causes; such as irregularity and inequality in the distribution of the heat; and 
 
 in the formation of the surface of the soil itself. 
 
 Van Dieman's Land produces stupendous trees; — they are said to measure sixty-three feet in 
 circumference, and to reach the height of 180 feet before putting forth any limbs; but with all this 
 exuberant vegetation, there is not one natural production of the land which affords the smallest 
 subsistence to man!! We can find nothing like this in the northern hemisphere — nothing like a 
 fertile soil and immense activity in vegetation, and yet that is so niggardly to man! Some cause, 
 or combination of causes, must exist in order to produce this amazing singularity — in order to render 
 these countries so unlike any others on the earth. I repeat, that none can be named so apparent 
 and permanent, as the two above stated, that is, the greater obliquity of the sun's rays, and the 
 wide waste of waters in this hemisphere. 
 
 It will be said, that the' southern zone differs from itself — that Chili differs from La Plata, and 
 
 that South Africa and Australia differ in many respects. All this is well known and admitted, but 
 
 these countries are uniform on one point: they all fall below the countries in the corresponding 
 
 latitudes north of the equator; and they all cause a degeneracy in the European emigrants. 
 
 2F 
 
122 APPENDIX. 
 
 The nations <>f La Plata did not require such veteran soldiers as Cortex and his followers to 
 subdue them in the Bixteenth century. They fell an easy prey to the first invader. No cities 
 upon their Immense river could be compared with Mexico — none like that ill-fated town could have 
 withstood the fierce assaults of the savage Cortez for 75 days. Even the neighboring state of 
 Peru, advanced as she was in the arts, was far behind Mexico in prowess and energy of character. 
 Pizarro found the natives timid and cowardly when compared with the Mexicans. They had not 
 even sagacity sufficient to profit by the battles which the Spaniards fought with each other. Now 
 it has been proved beyond all doubt, elsewhere,* that the Mexicans, Peruvians, and Buenos Ayreans, 
 were the same people; and hence, I say, that the only difference between them was caused by 
 climate. 
 
 Thus much for the natives of America. The inferiority of the South to the North African is 
 still greater, — and no one would think of naming the New-Hollander with the Chinese or Tartars. 
 It is admitted that the Dutch have degenerated in South Africa, and that the Spaniards and Portuguese 
 have degenerated in South America. If the same causes produce the same efTects, the same 
 degeneracy awaits the Anglo-Australian, unless some great effort is made — unless some disturbing and 
 counteracting force is applied to arrest his downward course to barbarism. , 
 
 English writers tell us that the British character has deteriorated already at New South Wales. 
 If this be apparent in so short a period, and among the free settlers, how much more apparent and 
 appalling will it be after a long lapse of time, when these regions shall be fully peopled? 
 
 Nature herself seems to have destined the southern section of the earth for the home of aerial 
 and aquatic animals. Here they attain their largest size, and here they swarm in the greatest 
 numbers. I am fully sensible that this fact has been mentioned before, and that I am defective in 
 arrangement and guilty of repetitions. But I am not fishing for fine words, but for useful facts. 
 The view of the subject is, besides, entirely new, and although I have light enough, I have neither 
 path nor precedent to guide me. If I must make a path for myself, be it so, even at the risk 
 of repeating the same facts. 
 
 The second cause remains to be examined — it is the immense disparity between the water and 
 land in the southern hemisphere. Here difficulties beset us on all sides. We have no access to 
 tables which w'ould show the amount of the annual heat, or the barometrical pressure of the air in 
 the southern hemisphere. Its terraqueous surface, however, is tolerably well known. 
 
 "Docs yon fair sun trace half the circle round, 
 To light the waves and monsters of the seas?" 
 
 Yes, the parent sun lights a wide waste of waters, and produces enormous masses of organic 
 life beneath the waves — for, during his march over the whole circle, he sees little on the land but 
 naked and houseless savages, and civilized men in different stages of degeneracy. 
 
 Is this region to be forever a prey to darkness and error? We hope and believe not — but 
 affirm that it will require greater and more rational efforts than have ever yet been made to produce 
 a powerful and thriving nation there. It will require more exertion there than at the north — as 
 man is there more exposed to deleterious external causes. 
 
 * Sec Mr. Delaficld's Essay 
 
APPENDIX. 123 
 
 If the causes and the consequences of the inferiority of this region were well known, it would 
 enable commercial nations and colonization societies to calculate the chances of success in planting 
 colonies. This knowledge would be valuable — it would save much useless expense, when it is 
 ascertained that other causes than their great distance are in operation to check the growth of 
 Australia and Cape-Colony. 
 
 Will the Anglo-Australian colonies ever become rich, enlightened, and independent? Every present 
 appearance is against it. Nothing has, as yet, appeared to show that the descendants of Englishmen 
 will not remain as subjects of a crown colony, and continue to be ruled by a remote island. The 
 Anglo-Australian will fear the rod of a master 15,000 miles off. 
 
 Time tries all things. If at a future period some powerful nation should arise in the southern 
 zone, and become in arts and arms to that region what Great Britain, France, and the United 
 States, have been and now are to the northern zone, — why, then this theory must be abandoned, as 
 not true to the extent claimed, and these speculations be buried with other rubbish. 
 
 It matters not whether this rich and powerful nation, that is to be, be Anglo-Australian, Hispanio- 
 American, Lusitanio-American, Anglo-Belgo-African, or Oceanean. Even the cannibal natives of New- 
 Zealand, might be mentioned, for they are superior in physical force and intellectual energy to any 
 other native tribes in the Austral zone. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the nations of the southern zone should continue stubbornly and successfully to 
 resist all efforts made to civilize them — then the physical causes of their inferiority will be firmly 
 established, and uniformly admitted by all reasonable men. 
 
 The degeneracy of man in every degree of longitude in the southern zone, is too uniform and 
 general to be the result of accident and moral causes alone. Here I shall take leave to repeat the 
 substance of what has been said before. Respectable writers have called the descendants of the 
 Dutch at the Cape, and of the Spaniards at La Plata, savage barbarians; but these same learned 
 authors say, that it is wholly owing to their scattered situation: that is, if they had settled nearer 
 together, they would have been prosperous and rich, and of course, would not have been what they 
 actually are — semi-savages. This theory well deserves the attention of the statesman and philanthropist. 
 Were they, theD, forced to form scattered settlements? Do not these writers put the effect for the 
 cause, and the cause for the effect? Is their dispersion the cause of their barbarism, or their 
 
 barbarism the cause of their dispersion? Savages cannot live in thickly settled communities their 
 
 improvident habits could not provide for their subsistence in a dense population. They, therefore 
 disperse from necessity, and become hunters and herdsmen. If dispersion alone would cause barbarism 
 why is this cause inoperative in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in Georgia, and Alabama. If it be the 
 sole cause of degeneracy, why are its dire effects confined to the southern zone? Is the dense 
 population of China caused wholly by her superior civilization? If the subjects of the Celestial 
 Empire, were scattered over the fertile lands south of the Oregon, would they lose their industrious 
 habits, and become wandering, helpless savages? 
 
124 APPENDIX. 
 
 SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE EXTENT OF THE EFFECTS OF THE CAUSES OPERATING 
 UPON THE LAND OF THE SOUTHERN TEMPERATE ZONE. 
 
 The chief causes enumerated are: 
 
 1. The shortness of the southern summer. 
 
 2. The immense and disproportionate mass of water in the southern zone. 
 
 The operation of these causes has been powerful, silent and incessant: — and of their peculiar 
 effect upon the land and land animals of the Austral portion of our globe, there can be no reasonable 
 doubt. These two may be classed, then, as the first, efficient, and certain causes of the hebetude 
 and degeneracy of the land animals of this less favored hemisphere. 
 
 Some other minor causes might be mentioned as auxiliaries; although their effects are not so 
 well known, and cannot be with such unerring certainty established. They are mentioned as only 
 probable causes, or as mere hypotheses. 
 
 They are: 
 
 1. The less distance of the sun from the earth during the short southern summer — which has 
 been glanced at before. 
 
 2. The difference in the magnetic intensity of the two hemispheres. 
 
 It is said that the electric or magnetic intensity of the northern hemisphere is positive, while 
 that of the southern hemisphere is negative. And, also, that the magnetic attraction, or inductive 
 influence of the sun, is greatest upon the southern hemisphere. Writers have embraced different 
 opinions in regard to positive and negative electricity. The pupils of Franklin give the following 
 definition: 
 
 "Positive electricity is an accumulation, or too great a quantity of the electric matter contained 
 in a body; and negative electricity is where there is too little." 
 
 Until more is known of electricity and magnetism, no hypothesis built upon the foundation of 
 these infant sciences, can be permanent. These sciences are almost as dark and unexplored as the 
 continent of New-Holland itself. It seems, however, that there is something in the atmosphere of 
 Australia that cannot be explained on any known principle of thermometrical heat, or barometrical 
 pressure. Is it owing to electricity, or to some unknown and unexplained cause? If an Englishman, 
 as stated in one of the notes, born fifty degrees north of the equator, could sustain with impunity, 
 a heat of 110 degrees in Australia, it is the duty of the naturalist to search for the recondite 
 cause. Much remains to be known of this region. It is to be hoped that a comparative degree 
 of civilization will prevail over the vast surface of Australia before the close of the present century. 
 
APPENDIX. 125 
 
 NOTES 
 
 (1.) The Ethiopians are a people between the extremes of barbarism and civilization. Their 
 garments are of cotton, though those of a more opulent kind are of silk. * * * * Unprovided 
 with salt at home, they purchase it from abroad for its weight in gold. 
 
 The Hottentots seldom live more than forty years, and of this short duration of life, the causes 
 doubtless are, their being so fond of filth, and residing continually in the midst of it; as also their 
 living upon meat which is tainted and corrupted, of which indeed their nourishment principally 
 consists. — Buff on, page 161, 164. 
 
 (2.) In Norway and Lapland the Scotch fir tree attains to a height of sixty feet in latitude 
 70°; and at Tornea, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, in latitude 66°, the birches are described 
 by Van Buch as " magnificent.'''' ***** l n Norway, barley sometimes ripens, under favorable 
 aspects, under the 70th parallel of latitude. 
 
 The Cape of Good Hope just falls within the latitude adapted to the grape; and a considerable 
 quantity of wine is annually exported from that settlement. It is of very inferior quality to the 
 wines of Europe and Northern Africa, having an unpleasant, earthy taste, which is said to arise 
 from the clayey nature of the soil. — Borten's Geography of Plants. 
 
 The Hyena Dog. — This dog is a native of Southern Africa, and is a serious nuisance to the 
 frontier settlement at the Cape. Its ferocity seems to be untameable. Mr. Burchell, who first 
 carried it to England, kept one for twelve months, at the end of which period even its feeder did 
 not dare to lay his hand upon it. The Australian dog also is mentioned as exceedingly voracious 
 and fierce. — Buff on. 
 
 (3.) Swine's flesh, it is remarkable, is rejected by the Caffres with abhorrence. The same is 
 the case with the feathered tribe to some extent; none of them keep poultry of any sort; and eggs 
 as an article of food, are altogether contraband. Nay, these scrupulous gentry will have nothing 
 to do with the fish of the sea, which they for the most part regard as company for snakes, and 
 not fit for the food of a gentleman. So that, although these people live almost wholly on, or near 
 the coast, the entire line of which abounds with the choicest fish, they are ignorant of the art of 
 casting a net. ******* 
 
 The frontier population of the European colony at the Cape is the very beau ideal of bastard 
 barbarism. The Caffres and the Dutch boors have always been tugging at each other's throats. 
 ****** Unfortunately, the English, although only thirty years in possession of the 
 colony, have, during that short period, outstripped, in their horrible oppression of the natives, even 
 the cold-blooded cruelties of the Dutch boors of the last century. No British traveller h&s denied 
 this, so far as we know, and most of them confirm it in explicit terms. Among them may be 
 named Thomson, Barron, Pringle, and quite lately, Dr. Philip and the Rev. Mr. Ray. — N. A. 
 Review for Oct. 1834. 
 
 (4.) The scattered, poor, and ignorant inhabitants of South Africa, could not but submit patiently 
 
 to the oppression, the sportive injustice, and fantastic cruelty of an English Lord, sent across the 
 
 2G 
 
126 APPENDIX. 
 
 world to do with them as he pleased. They were incapable of governing themselves, and therefore 
 quite unable to resist a foreign tyrant. 
 
 With the capacity for self-government comes the power to exercise it. A people entirely fit tr 
 manage themselves, will never long submit to be managed by others, much less to be managed bj 
 an authority residing at a great distance from them. 
 
 If the Cape colonists had not obtained some slaves, that is, some combination of labor in the 
 particular works of their farms, they would, being so scattered, and prevented from combining their 
 own labor, have degenerated into the state of those savage descendants of Spaniards, who inhabit 
 the plains of Buenos Ayres. As it was, a more ignorant and brutal race of men, than the boors 
 or farmers of South Africa, never, perhaps, existed. 
 
 • ••••• The Dutch colony of New- York is mentioned by way of contrast with 
 
 the preceding case — a contrast the more remarkable, since the miserable cob my of South Africa, 
 and the prosperous colony of New-York, were founded by the same industrious, skilful, and thrifty 
 nation. — England and America, page 264. 
 
 ( 5.) These last, (zones,) however, are merely names, given for the sake of naming; as in fact, 
 owing to the different distribution of land and sea in the two hemispheres, zones of climate are 
 not co-terminal with zones of latitude. — HerschelPs Astronomy, page 195. 
 
 The natives (of the island of Tanna, one of the- new Hebrides group,) gave us to understand, 
 in a manner which I thought admitted of no doubt, that they eat human Jlesh; and that circumcision 
 was practised among them. They began the subject of eating human flesh of their own accord, 
 by asking us if we did; otherwise I should never have thought of asking them such a question. — 
 Captain Cool;. 
 
 One of the natives of New-Caledonia, having in his hand a bone newly boiled, and devouring 
 the remains of flesh still upon it, advanced towards one of the officers and invited him to partake 
 of his meal. The latter supposing he was offering him a piece of some quadruped, accepted the 
 bone, which was then covered only with tendinous parts; and having shown it to me, I perceived 
 that it belonged to the ossa innominate of a youth of fourteen or fifteen years of age. The 
 natives who surrounded us, pointed out on a child the situation of those bones; they made no 
 scruple to own, that the flesh that had covered them had served as a meal, and they gave us to 
 understand, that they considered it as a very choice dish. »****•*! brought the 
 bone on board with me, now picked clean, which our surgeon recognized to be that of a girl. I 
 presented it to the two natives we had on board; and immediately one of these anthropophagi 
 seized it with avidity, and tore with his teeth the ligaments and cartilages which yet remained. 
 
 On the following day, we landed early in the morning on the nearest part of the coast, where 
 we found some savages, who were already taking their meal. They invited us to partake with 
 them some meat newly boiled, which we perceived to be human flesh. The skin that was on it 
 still preserved its form entire, and in several parts even its color. They signified to us, that they 
 had cut off this joint from the middle of the arm. ******* Some of them came up 
 to the most robust of us, and felt of the muscular parts of our arms and thighs, exclaiming 
 "Kapareck!" with an air of admiration. ******* 
 
 Several natives swam off to our ship, — one of them told us, that they had eaten two of the 
 
APPENDIX. 127 
 
 thieves, or kayas, who had been killed in the late encounter with us. * * * * It is difficult to 
 depict the ferocious avidity with which he expressed to us, that the flesh of the unfortunate victims 
 was devoured by them after they had broiled it on the coals. This cannibal also let us know, 
 that the flesh of the arms and legs was cut into slices, and that they considered the most muscular 
 parts a very agreeable dish. It was then easy for us to explain why they frequently felt our arms 
 and legs, manifesting a violent longing: they then uttered a faint whistling, which they produced by 
 closing the teeth and applying to them the tip of the tongue; afterwards opening their mouths, they 
 smacked their lips several times in succession. — Voyage of D'Entrecasteaux, (in 1793.) 
 
 The New-Zealanders have no contrivance like a bow to discharge an arrow or dart, nor anything 
 like a sling to assist them in throwing a stone; which is the more surprising, as the invention of 
 slings, and bows and arrows is much more obvious than of the works which these people conduct, 
 and both these weapons are found among much ruder nations, and in almost every part of the 
 world. ****** 
 
 Having cast our eyes carelessly into one of' these provision baskets, we saw two bones pretty 
 cleanly picked, which did not seem to be the bones of a dog, and which, upon a nearer 
 examination we discovered them to be those of a human body. At this sight, we were struck with 
 horror, though it was only a confirmation of what we had heard many times since we arrived 
 upon this coast, as we could have no doubt that the bones were human, neither could we have any 
 doubt but that the flesh that covered them had been eaten. They were found in a provision 
 basket; the flesh that remained appeared evidently to have been dried by fire, and in the gristles 
 at the end were the marks of the teeth which had gnawed them. * * * * Tupia asked what 
 bones they were, and the Indians, (New-Zealanders,) without the least hesitation, answered the bones 
 of a man: they were then asked what was become of the flesh, and they replied that they had 
 eaten it ! ! * * * * * Though stronger evidence of this horrid practice prevailing among the 
 inhabitants of this coast will scarcely be required, we have still stronger to give. One of us asked 
 if they had any human bones with the flesh remaining upon them, and upon their answering us 
 that all had been eaten, we affected to disbelieve that the bones were human, and said that they 
 were the bones of a dog; upon which one of the natives with some eagerness, took hold of his 
 own forearm, and thrusting it towards us, said that the bone which Mr. Banks held in his hand 
 belonged to that part of a human body; at the same time, to convince us that the flesh had been 
 eaten, he took hold of his own with his teeth, and made a show of eating; he also bit and gnawed 
 the bone which Mr. Banks held in his hand, drawing it through his mouth and showing by signs, 
 that it had afforded a delicious repast. The bone was then returned to Mr. Banks, who brought 
 it away with him. ******* 
 
 Some of our people found in the skirts of the wood near a hole or oven, three human hip- 
 bones; — a further proof that these people eat human flesh. ********* 
 
 The people here brought us out several human bones, the flesh of which they had eaten, and 
 offered them for sale, &c. * * * * 
 
 In the afternoon some of the officers went on shore to amuse themselves among the natives, 
 where they saw the head and bowels of a youth who had lately been killed, lying on the beach, 
 and the heart stuck on a forked stick, which was fixed to the head of one of the largest canoes. 
 One of the gentlemen bought the head and brought it on board, where a piece of the flesh was 
 broiled and eaten by one of the natives, before all the officers and most of the men. The sight 
 
123 APPENDIX. 
 
 of the head and the relation of the above circumstances struck me with horror, and filled my mind 
 with indignation against these cannibals. Curiosity, however, got the better of my indignation, and 
 beino- desirous of being an eye ivilness of a feast which many doubted, I ordered a piece of the 
 flesh to be broiled and brought to the quarter deck, where one of these cannibals eat it with 
 surprising avidity. This had such an effect on some of the sailors as to make them sick. That 
 the New-Zealanders are cannibals, can now no longer be doubted. Few consider what a savage 
 man is in his natural state, and even after he is in some degree civilized. 
 
 Amono- many reasons which I have heard assigned for the prevalence of this horrid custom, the 
 want of animal food has been one; but how far this is deducible either from facts or circumstances, 
 I shall leave those to find out who advanced it. In every part of New-Zealand where I have been, 
 fish was in such plenty, that the natives generally caught as much as served both themselves and 
 us. Thev have also plenty of dogs; nor is there any want of wild fowl, which they know very 
 well how to kill. So that neither this, nor the want of food of any kind can be the reason. 
 But whatever it may be, I think it was but too evident that they have a great liking for this kind 
 of food. — Capt. Cook. 
 
 The New-Zealanders are ignorant of the art of boiling. Having no vessel in which water can 
 be boiled, their cooking consists wholly of baking and roasting. — Universal Geography. 
 
 They were seen to eat the vermin with which their heads were sufficiently stocked. 
 
 Tovy or Tavai Poenammoo, the southern division of New-Zealand, is for the most part a 
 mountainous, and to all appearance a barren country. * * 
 
 Eaheimaumee, the northern most division has a much better appearance. The summer temperature 
 here was not higher than 66°. The winter also seemed equally mild; for in June, 1773, which 
 corresponds to our December, the mercury never fell lower than 48°, and the trees at the time 
 retained their verdure, as if in the summer season, so that their foliage is seldom shed, till pushed 
 off by the succeeding leaves of spring. * * * There are no quadrupeds but dogs and rats, and 
 the rats were so scarce that few of them were seen. The dogs live with the people, who breed 
 them for no other purpose than to eat. * * * * 
 
 For this scarcity of animals upon the land, the sea, however, makes an abundant recompense, 
 every creek swarming with fish. * * * The sea coast is also visited by many oceanic birds, 
 particularly albatrosses, sheerwaters, penguins and pintadoes. 
 
 The dispositions of both sexes are sanguinary and ferocious, and they are implacable towards 
 their enemies. * * * * Cannibals in general are not solicitous for the preservation of animals, 
 or careful in rearing them, when they procure human flesh with less trouble. These ferocious 
 savages, therefore, wage continual war on one another, and the victorious gorge themselves upon 
 the flesh of the vanquished victims. 
 
 Their perpetual state of war, and destructive method of conducting it, operate so strongly 
 in pjoducing habitual circumspection, that one hardly ever finds a New-Zealander off his guard, either 
 by night or by day. Indeed, no other men can have such powerful motives to be vigilant, as the 
 preservation both of body and soul depends upon it: for, according to their system of belief, the 
 soul of the man whose flesh is devoured by the enemy, is doomed to a perpetual ' fire ; while the 
 soul of the man whose body has been rescued from those who killed him, as well as the souls of 
 those who die a natural death, ascend to the habitations of the gods. * * * If they have more 
 of their slaughtered enemies than they can eat, they throw them into the sea.— Capt. Cool;. 
 
APPENDIX. 129 
 
 * * * The hunger of him who is pressed by famine to fight will absorb every good feeling, 
 
 and every sentiment that would restrain him from allaying that hunger with the body of his 
 adversary. * * * 
 
 Among those who are accustomed to eat the dead, death must have lost much of its horror; 
 
 and where there is little horror at the sight of death, there will not be much repugnance to kill. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The situation and circumstances of these people, as well as their temper, are not favorable to 
 such as shall settle as a colony among them. Their temper renders it difficult to attach them by 
 kindness. **-****** 
 
 This country scarcely sustains the number of its inhabitants, who from their indolence in not 
 attending to the cultivation of their vegetable productions in due season, are urged to perpetual 
 hostilities by hunger, &c. ***** 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that though the inhabitants of Van Dieman's Land appeared to have 
 but a scanty subsistence, they would not even touch our people's bread, though they saw them eat 
 it, whereas ' these people devoured it greedily when both mouldy and rotten. But this was not 
 owing to any defect in their sensations, for they were observed to throw away articles of food of 
 which our people eat, with evident disgust, after only smelling to them. The nature of their food 
 in general corresponds with the nastiness of their persons, from the quantity of grease about them, 
 and their clothes never being washed. 
 
 Water is their universal and only liquor as far as could be discovered. — Capt. Cook. 
 
 At Rose Hill, the heat, on the 10th and 11th of February, on which days at Sydney the 
 thermometer stood in the shade at 105 c , was so excessive, that immense numbers of the large 
 fox-bat were seen hanging at the boughs of the trees, and dropping in the water, which by their 
 stench was rendered unwholesome. * * * During the excessive heat many bats dropped dead while 
 on the wing; and it was remarkable that those that were picked up were chiefly males. In several 
 parts of the harbour the ground was covered with different sorts of small birds, some dead and 
 others gasping for water. 
 
 The relief of the detachment at Rose Hill unfortunately took place on one of those sultry 
 days; [in Feb.] and the officer having occasion to land in search of water, was compelled to walk 
 several miles before any could be found, the rivers which were known being all dry; in his way 
 to and from the boat, he found several birds dropping dead at his feet. The wind was about 
 north-west, and did much injury to the gardens, burning up all before it. Those persons whose 
 business compelled them to go into the heated air, declared that it was impossible to turn the face 
 for five minutes to the quarter from whence the wind blew. 
 
 The dogs peculiar to this country could never be checked of their natural ferocity. Although 
 
 well fed, they would at all times, but particularly in the dark, fly at young pigs, chickens, or any 
 
 small animal that they might be able to conquer, and immediately kill and generally eat them. 
 
 Capt. Hunter had one which was a little puppy when caught; but though he took much pains to 
 
 correct and break its savageness, he found it took every opportunity to snap off the head of a 
 
 fowl, or worry a pig, and would do it in defiance of correction. The dogs of this country are 
 
 of the jackall species. They never bark; are of two colors, the one red, with some white about 
 
 it, the other quite black. 
 
 2H 
 
130 APPENDIX. 
 
 Here [South Africa,] are some of a mixed breed, called Mulattoes, who are an abandoned set 
 of people, and have proceeded from an intermixture of negroes and Europeans; for when the 
 Portuguese first discovered the south-west coast of Africa, they not only propagated their religion, 
 but also their species, in many parts of it. These are of a tawny complexion, and profess 
 themselves Christians; notwithstanding which, they retain many of the most superstitious notions of 
 the pagans. They imitate the Po v '.uguese in their dress, but exceed both them and the negroes in 
 their rices. The men arc drunkards, lewd, thievish, and treacherous; and the women are the most 
 abandoned prostitutes, sacrificing themselves at all times, and to all sorts of men, without the least 
 degree of restraint. — Cook's Qeography. 
 
 The people of Anzico [South Africa,] are mere savages. They pay no attention to agriculture, 
 or use any endeavors to preserve their existence, but by plundering all who happen to fall in their 
 way, some of whom they kill, and others they keep as slaves. They are dreaded for their 
 extreme brutality, and are so irrational, that few Europeans can trade with them. 
 
 The body of the king of the Jaggas was painted with various figures, and anointed every day 
 with human fat. » • • • The young men are no sooner enrolled as soldiers than they have 
 a collar hung about their necks, in token of slavery, which is to be worn by them till they bring 
 home the head of an enemy, when it is publicly taken off, and they are declared freemen of the 
 cannibal commonwealth. * * * A portion of the captives of both sexes is inhumanly reserved 
 to be killed and eaten; not in time of scarcity of cattle and other provisions, but out of cruel 
 wantonness, and in preference to all other flesh. — Cook's Geography. 
 
 The Caffres. Of fishing they are so totally ignorant, that the whole extent of their coast, 
 though washed by the sea, and intersected by several considerable rivers, does not produce a single 
 boat or floating vessel of any description; probably some peculiar superstition may prohibit the use 
 of fish, or otherwise they are unwilling, from a natural timidity, to entrust themselves in a frail 
 bark upon the deep waters. 
 
 The enunciation of their language is fluent, soft, and harmonious, though not the smallest vestige 
 of a written character is to be found among them. Of astronomy, they only know that in about 
 thirty days the moon will have gone through all its various appearances, and that twelve moons 
 will bring a revolution cf the seasons. Their chronology, which is kept by the moon, and registered 
 by notches in a piece of timber, seldom extends beyond one generation, when the old series is 
 cancelled, and the death of a favorite chief, or some remarkable conquest, serves for a new era. 
 
 The manner of disposing of the dead is extremely singular, and essentially different from the 
 practice of the surrounding nations. Their chiefs are usually buried very deep, under the places 
 that are appointed for the nocturnal repose of the oxen; and their children are commonly deposited in 
 excavated ant-hills; but all other persons are exposed on their decease to, the wolves, and are instantly 
 dragged away to the dens of these ferocious animals, — the wolves are, therefore, held sacred by the 
 Caffres, and permitted to ravage the country without molestation. 
 
 » • • • • \v e ma y suppose that nature has placed some insuperable barrier between the 
 natives of this division of Africa and the inhabitants of Europe, or that the South Africans, being 
 so long accustomed to a savage manner of life, and degenerating from one age to another, at length 
 became hardly capable of making any progress in civilization or science. It is very certain that 
 
APPENDIX. 131 
 
 all the attempts of the Europeans, particularly the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope, have been 
 hitherto ineffectual for making the least impression on these savage mortals, or giving the least 
 inclination for, or even idea of, the European manner of living. — Cooke's Geography. 
 
 Mauritius. There is an animal of a very singular nature, which M. Buffon calls the Madagascar 
 Mauritius, and particularly predominates in the latter, we think proper here to describe it. But it 
 is necessary to premise, that the bats seen in Great Britain are inoffensive, incapable from their 
 size of injuring mankind, and not sufficiently numerous to incommode them; but here there is a 
 larger race of bats that are truly formidable; a single one is a dangerous enemy, but when they 
 unite in flocks they become really dreadful. 
 
 Des Marchais says, that if the inhabitants of the East African coast were to eat animals of 
 the bat kind, as they do in the East Indies, they would never want a supply of provisions. They 
 are so numerous, that when they fly they obscure the setting sun; early in the morning they are 
 seen sticking upon the tops of trees and clinging together in great heaps. The Europeans often 
 amuse themselves with shooting them, and the negroes are expert in killing them; they, however, 
 look on the bat with horror, and would not eat it if they were starving. 
 
 This bat is about a foot long from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail, and its 
 extent from the tip of one wing to that of the other, is about four feet. ******* 
 
 Nothing is safe from the depredations of these noxious creatures; they destroy fowls and 
 domestic animals, if they are not properly secured, and frequently fasten upon the inhabitants 
 themselves, attacking them in the face, and inflicting very terrible wounds. ****** 
 Persons have been attacked by these creatures and have sometimes passed from a sound sleep into 
 eternity. — Cook's Geography. 
 
 The smallness of the number of inhabitants upon the island of Madagascar in proportion to its 
 extent, [its area is about 200,000 square miles,] may be imputed to the horrid cruelties exercised on 
 their children, in strangling them in their birth, or sacrificing them to demons, at the instance of 
 the ombiasses, or priests, who hold an uncontrolled power over their minds. — Ibid. 
 
 (6.) The opinion that our sun as well as the fixed stars by which it is surrounded in space 
 maintain their rotative positions by virtue of electrical repulsion, is one that I am far from believing 
 mvself capable of demonstrating, nor F do I flatter myself that I shall be able to do more than 
 clean from the solar system such evidence as will excuse the conjecture. Philosophers have so 
 Ion" been in the habit of receiving no other explanations of astronomical phenomena but such as 
 are susceptible of mathematical demonstration, that explanations drawn from any other source would 
 be likely to find but little favor in the eyes of the astronomers of this day. But when we 
 observe a phenomenon in the solar system, or a condition of a heavenly body which has heretofore 
 been regarded as totally inexplicable, and which could not by possibility have resulted from the 
 operations of the two great forces which are said to control all the motions of the heavenly bodies, 
 then I think we are at least excusable in searching for some other agent or natural cause to whose 
 influence we may rationally ascribe such a phenomenon. 
 
 And in glancing at the phenomena of the solar system which may be regarded as indicative of 
 the electrical condition of our sun, I shall first notice the obliquity of the ecliptic to the plane of 
 the equator, — a phenomenon which I have been led to suspect, depends upon the difference in the 
 
I3 2 APPENDIX. 
 
 magnetic intensity of the two hemispheres of our globe; but in order to understand the explanation 
 which I propose, it will be necessary for a time to assume that the sun is intensely positive, and 
 that it disturbs the electrical equilibrium of the planets by the law of induction, and then the 
 obliquity of the ecliptic to the plane of the equator would seem to result as a matter of course 
 from such a state of things. 
 
 If ever our earth revolved upon an axis perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, then the plane 
 of the ecliptic and the plane of the equator must, as a natural consequence, have coincided; but so 
 soon as any cause or causes whatever conspired to render one hemisphere of the globe negative 
 and the other positive, [the southern negative and the northern positive,] immediately the inductive 
 influence of the sun began to be unequally exerted upon them. 
 
 The attraction of the positive sun would be greatest on the negative or southern hemisphere, 
 and this attraction would occasion a depression of the negative pole and a corresponding elevation 
 of the positive pole; and this depression of the southern, and elevation of the northern pole, would 
 o-ive the identical inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic which we see it now 
 possesses- and the rapidity with which this inclination increased must have .been proportionate to the 
 original eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and to the negative intensity of the southern hemisphere, 
 while the extent to which it advanced must have been determined by the gradual approach of the 
 earth's orbit to a circular shape, and the resistance which the rotary motion of the earth upon its 
 axis furnished to the disturbing influence of the sun. One of the strongest arguments in favor of 
 this explanation is, that the present inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic, could 
 not have been produced by the inductive influence of the sun in an orbit of any other shape than 
 that which the earth possesses. For it is obvious, that if the earth's orbit had been a perfect 
 circle, any depression of the southern pole occasioned by the inductive influence of the sun, would 
 have been perpetually increasing, until it [the southern pole] would have pointed directly to the sun 
 in everv portion of its orbit; and it would have been impossible for the earth's axis to have 
 continued under these circumstances parallel to itself in its revolution round the sun. For it is 
 clear, that the attraction of the positive sun for the negative hemisphere would have been equal 
 from everv point of a circular orbit; and hence the slightest inclination of the southern pole towards 
 the sun would have been maintained in every portion of the orbit, causing the northern pole to describe 
 annually circles in the heavens similar to those which are now occasioned by the precession of the 
 equinoxes in every 2,500 years. 
 
 Nor could the present inclination of the axis have been produced in an elliptical orbit if the 
 sun had been situated in the centre of the ellipse; for the first inclination would have taken place 
 in the earth's axis at its nearest approach to the sun, which would have been in passing the 
 shorter diameter of its orbit, and whatever inclination towards the sun the southern pole might 
 have received at this point, would have been corrected as the earth on its return passed the 
 opposite portion of its orbit. 
 
 It is clear, that the attraction of the positive sun for the negative hemisphere of our globe in 
 passing the two extremes of the shorter axis of its orbit, would have been exerted in diametrically 
 opposite directions, so that although the inductive influence of the sun thus situated in the centre 
 of the ellipse might have occasioned oscillations in the earth's axis of rotations, still it never could 
 have given to it any permanent inclination. But place the sun in one of the foci of the ellipse, 
 and you will find that his inductive influence will produce a very similar if not the identical 
 
APPENDIX. 133 
 
 inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic which it possesses at present. But as a 
 matter of course in this case, we presume that the original eccentricity of the earth's orbit was so 
 great, as to bring the earth in its perihelion near enough to the sun to enable his inductive influence 
 to overcome the resistance furnished by the rotary motion of the earth upon its axis, so that 
 whenever the earth approached its perihelion, the attraction of the sun for the negative hemisphere, 
 and his repulsion of the positive, were combined in giving the earth's axis a certain degree of 
 inclination, and this inclination became increased at each annual revolution. But the amount of 
 annual increase must have diminished in proportion to the diminution in the eccentricity of the 
 earth's orbit, until finally this diminution became so great, as to remove the earth in its perihelion 
 too far from the sun for his inductive influence further to disturb the position of its axis; and 
 whatever inclination the axis had at that time, must be maintained with slight variations so long as 
 the earth revolves in an orbit with an eccentricity not less than the one which it possessed at the 
 time when the inclination ceased to be augmented. 
 
 But whether this diminution in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit has been the effect of a 
 central repulsive power, dependent upon the electrical condition of the sun, and operating upon the 
 earth as an electric of a greater or less degree of intensity, or whether it has been exclusively the 
 result of the disturbing influence of the other planets, I am not prepared to say. But I believe 
 that no philosopher has ever yet attempted to assign any limit to the original eccentricity of the 
 earth's orbit, and all agree in believing that it was once far greater than it is at present. This 
 opinion is strongly corroborated by the geological indications in high northern latitudes, where we 
 find the fossil remains of vegetables and animals, which are now known to exist only in tropical 
 regions, showing that the frigid zone must have once possessed a much higher temperature than it 
 does at present, which must have resulted from the greater approximation of the earth to the sun 
 in perihelion, particularly when the perihelion coincided with the summer solstice. — Southern Review 
 for August, 1838. Article, Electrical Astronomy. Pages 147, 148. 
 
 (7.) Turning to a map, the reader will find Botany Bay on the eastern coast of New-Holland, 
 in the 34th degree of south latitude. This spot is the centre of the settlement which extends north 
 and south for two degrees of latitude, forming a sea-coast range of about 300 miles. The breadth 
 of the province may be reckoned at somewhat less than 200 miles in the broadest part; and its 
 irregular boundary line, as laid down by Major Mitchell, would be contained within the shape of a 
 half heart, except towards the southern extremity, or lower end. 
 
 Its physical features are sandy plains and rocky mountain ranges, intermingled here and there 
 with spots capable of cultivation, especially on a water line; the proportion of the fertile to the 
 barren land will be apprehended from Major Mitchell's statement, that out of 23,000,000 of acres, 
 not quite four and a half millions have been found "worth havinc." ***** 
 
 Except to the south of the Murray, the general features of this vast country [Australia Felix,] 
 are — an alternation of vast grazing plains, fertile, till parched tip by drought; flats of a soft soil, 
 which, after rain, is scarcely passable even with light carriages, whilst in dry weather it cracks into 
 large gaps,- wastes, varying from scrub to sandy desert, and occasional high lands, which, towards 
 the north and south run into the range of mountains parallel to the coast. ***** 
 
 But the most striking character of the whole country, [Australia Felix,] is the evident proof it 
 affords of violent floods succeeding the long droughts. Extensive lagoons are discovered along the 
 
 21 
 
IU APPENDIX. 
 
 banks of tlic rivers, dearly produced by their overflowing; and these varying from lakes to pools 
 of mud, or hollows of springing vegetation. The courses of the streams themselves gave evident 
 marks of being subjected to violent torrents at pretty long intervals; and in one place Major 
 Mitchell saw some saplings of about ten years old, which after growing in safety for that period, 
 had been destroyed by an inundation. 
 
 A want of water — that is, the uncertainty of finding it — is as much felt throughout the vast 
 plains of the Happy Australia, as in New South Wales. None of the rivers were navigable for 
 the small boats carried by the party; in some places they were merely a succession of long ponds; 
 and they all appeared to dwindle gradually away towards their termination, no water being found in 
 any at their junction with the greater streams except the Murrumbidgec. But the Murray is 
 always full. Hence it seems to follow, that for years to come, the country, like the colonized 
 part of New South Wales, will only be fit for scattered locations and grazing grounds. 
 
 Time and population, the appliances of art to embank rivers, to sink wells, to form tanks, and 
 to bring into operation the various resources of human science, so as to husband and equalize the 
 waters — may perhaps enable it to support a dense population, — but this will be ages hence. 
 
 It will be understood that Major Mitchell, the Surveyor General, and author of the two volumes 
 on Australia Felix, is the admirer and eulogist of the natives of that region. He thus describes 
 the, 
 
 SAVAGE AT HOME. 
 
 As I was reconnoitering the ground for a camp, I observed a native on the opposite bank; and, 
 without being seen by him, I stood awhile to watch the habits of a savage man "at home." 
 
 His hands were ready to seize, his teeth to eat, any living thing; his step, light and noiseless 
 as a shadow, gave no intimation of his approach; his walk suggested the idea of the prowling of a 
 beast of prey. Every little track or impression left on the earth by the lower animals caught his 
 keen eye, but the trees over head chiefly engaged his attention. Deep in the hollow heart of some 
 of the upper branches was still hidden, as it seemed, the opossum on which he was to dine. The 
 wind blew cold and keenly through the lofty trees on the river margin; yet that broad, brawny 
 savage was entirely naked. 
 
 Had I been unarmed, I had much rather have met a lion than that sinewy biped; but I was 
 on horseback with pistols in my holsters, a broad river was flowing between us, and I overlooked 
 him from a high bank, and I ventured to disturb his meditations with a loud halloo. He then 
 stood still; looked at me for about a minute, and then retired with that easy bounding kind of step 
 which may be termed a running walk, exhibiting an unrestrained facility of movement, apparently 
 incompatible with chess of any kind. It is in bounding lightly, at such a pace, that, with the 
 additional aid of the " wammcrah^ the aboriginal native can throw his spear with sufficient force 
 and velocity to kill the emu or the kangaroo, even when at their speed. * * * * 
 
 AUSTRALIAN HARDIHOOD. 
 
 At this camp where we lay shivering for the want of fire, the dhTerent habits of the aborigines 
 and us strangers from the north were strongly contrasted. On that freezing night, the natives stript 
 
APPENDIX. 135 
 
 off all their clothes, (their usual custom,) previous to lying down to sleep in the open air; their 
 bodies doubled around a few burning reeds. 
 
 We could not understand how they bore the cold thus naked, when the earth was white with 
 hoar frost; and they were equally at a loss to know how we could sleep in our tents without 
 having a bit of fire beside us to keep our bodies warm. For the support of animal heat, fire and 
 smoke are almost as necessary to them as clothes are to us, and the naked savage is not without 
 some reason on his side, for with fire to warm his body, he has all the comfort he ever knows; 
 whereas we require both fire and clothing, and can therefore have no conception of the intensity 
 of enjoyment imparted to the naked body of a savage by the glowing embrace of a cloud of smoke 
 in winter, — or in summer the luxury of a bath which he may enjoy in any pond, when not content 
 with the refreshing breeze that fans his body during the intense heat. — From the Review of Major 
 Mitchell's Australian Expedition. 
 
 (8.) Tin Ancient Peruvians. — Those aboriginal tribes, up to the time of the Incas, were in the 
 lowest state of savage degradation. Their dwelling places were holes and caves in the mountains. 
 Their food was not the product of the soil, but, excepting human flesh, the game of the woods, 
 the fish of their streams, and the wild roots, fruits and berries of the forest. Those who were 
 not in a state of entire nudity, covered themselves with the undressed skins of the beasts they 
 caught. 
 
 But the most horrifying feature in their savage character was their cannibalism. They did not 
 content themselves with imitating the Mexicans, who feasted on the human flesh offered to their 
 gods, or other tribes who made their prisoners of war the meat of their table; but they fed and 
 fattened their own children, that they might butcher them like swine, and feed on their bloody 
 corpses. But no sooner had the Incarial family entered Peru, and acquired authority, than these 
 shocking atrocities vanished from the country. — Rev. J. Dempster's Letter from Buenos Ayres, dated 
 Jan. 1838. 
 
 (9.) Sir David Brewster called attention to the important fact, clearly established by the 
 meteorological observations recorded in the neighborhood of New- York, and those of Harsteen and 
 Erman in Siberia, that two points of maximum cold existed in those regions, very generally agreeing 
 in the position with the centres of maximum magnetic intensities, and like them, too, the maximum 
 of North America indicated a decidedly higher degree of cold than that which characterised the 
 Siberian pole. Also, that the lines of equally mean temperature, as they surrounded these poles, 
 had such a relation to the lines of equal magnetic intensity, as to point out clearly some yet 
 
 unknown connexion between these two classes of phenomena. ************ 
 
 ***** 
 
 As to the connexion between animal and vegetable life and climate, something more would be 
 found necessary than mere mean temperature. He had often ridden violently, and used much bodily 
 exertion in New South Wales, with the thermometer at 110 degrees in the shade, when the same 
 temperature in England would be insupportable, [the same heat never occurs in England with the 
 mercury in the shade.] And in the East Indies all the Europeans were so enervated when the 
 thermometer stood at this height [110 degrees] as to be nearly incapable of active exertion. 
 
 As to vegetation, we had on the one side of the Himalayan range, at an elevation of little 
 
136 APPENDIX. 
 
 more than 10,000 feet, lichens and all the stunted vegetation of the polar regions; while on the 
 other side, at an elevation of nearly 16,000 feet, we had corn-fields and large forest trees, and all 
 the productions of the temperate regions of the earth. *********** 
 
 In his opinion, the courses of rivers and of extensive forests, as well as of high ranges of 
 mountainous tracts were to be taken into account, as influencing most materially the climate of 
 circumjacent territories. — Sir David Brewster 's Speech before the British Association for the Advancement 
 of Science. 
 
 The gentleness of courtship, or rather the first proof of affection, among the savages of New 
 South Wales, consists in watching the beloved fair one of another tribe to her retirement, and then 
 knocking her down with repeated blows of a club or wooden sword. After which impressive and 
 elegant embrace, the matrimonial victim is dragged, streaming in her blood, to the lover's party, 
 and. obliged to acknowledge herself his wife. Cannibalism, in times of war, is still common to 
 several of the islands; [of the South Sea,] human immolation to most of them. 
 
 ****** ***** * * It is also probable that Australia has in like 
 manner been peopled by successive waves of rovers from both these continents; [Asia and Africa,] 
 for we trace proofs of both sources, sometimes separate and sometimes mixed. But the theories 
 that have been offered upon this subject are too numerous, and for the most part too fanciful for a 
 minute detail, and belong rather to the geographer than to the physiologist. 
 
 ******* Thus the gigantic height of the Patagonian has been adverted to as a very 
 prominent feature; the pigmy form of the Esquimaux; and the still more pigmy form of the Himos 
 of Madagascar, if any reliance may be placed on the testimony of Commerson, now that it has 
 been corroborated by Modave, and still more lately by the Abbe de Rochon; the curved leg of the 
 Calmuc race; the long leg of the Indian; and the high calf and flat foot of the Ethiopian. But 
 it appears to me that all such distinctions are upon too narrow a scale, and perhaps too much 
 dependent upon particular circumstances, for admission into the lines of a broad and original 
 demarcation. — Dr. Good. 
 
 The southern extremity of Africa, separated from the northern temperate zone by the intervention 
 of the tropical regions, presents an animal creation of a peculiar character. ***** J n like 
 manner, and for the same reason, the corresponding part of the American continent forms a separate 
 zoological province. 
 
 New-Holland possesses several entire genera of quadrupeds, which have been discovered in no 
 other part of the world, and more than forty species of the marsupial tribe, which is exceedingly 
 rare elsewhere. 
 
 This law of limitation to particular localities might be shown to prevail not less rigidly in respect 
 to other classes of animals, even to those of fishes and birds, which seem at first glance to be 
 almost unconfined in their range of sea and air. Thus it is well known that the whales which are 
 met with in the South Sea are distinct from those of the north; the same dissimilarity has been 
 found in all other marine animals of the same class, so far as they have been examined; and it 
 has been asserted by naturalists, who had spent years in collecting many thousand species of marine 
 animals in the southern hemisphere, that there is not a single animal of the southern regions, from 
 the sponges and the medusea to the testacea, which is not distinguished by essential characters from 
 the analogous species in the northern seas. *************** 
 
APPENDIX. 137 
 
 These people, [the Australians,] who are in the lowest state of barbarism, have been called by 
 some ethnographers, Malanesians, or Black Islanders, in contradistinction to the negroes or blacks of 
 Africa, to whom they bear no resemblance. ************ 
 
 A polar current sets along the west side of New-Holland from the south pole into the Bay of 
 Bengal, and there are other currents in this great body of waters, but their course and direction 
 are as yet too imperfectly known to be accurately described. — Universal Geography. 
 
 Electricity. — Electrical effects are exhibited by the same bodies when acting as masses, which 
 produce chemical phenomena when acting by their particles; it is not improbable, therefore, that the 
 primary cause of both may be the same. *************** * With 
 regard to the great speculative questions, whether the electrical phenomena depend upon one fluid in 
 excess in the bodies positively electrified, and in deficiency in the bodies negatively electrified, or upon 
 two different fluids capable by their combination of producing heat and light, or whether they may 
 be particular exertions of the general attractive power of matter, it is, perhaps, impossible to decide 
 in the present imperfect state of our knowledge. — Sir Humphry Davy. 
 
 The platypus anatinus, or duck-bill, (the ornithoryneus paradoxus of Blumenbach,) one of the 
 many wonders of New South Wales, unites in its form and habits the three classes of birds, quadrupeds, 
 and amphibials. Its feet, which are four, are those of a quadruped; but each of them is palmated 
 or webbed, like a wild fowl's; and instead of lips, it has the precise bill of a shoveller, or other 
 broad-billed water bird; while its body is covered with a fur exactly resembling an otter's. 
 
 Yet it lives, like a lizard, chiefly in the water, digs and burrows under the banks of rivers 
 and feeds on aquatic plants and aquatic animals. 
 
 * * * It is a curious fact, that in that vast part of the globe which has been latest 
 discovered, and to which modern geographers have given the name of Australia, comprising New- 
 Holland and the islands with which its shores are studded, not a single bed or stratum of limestone 
 has hitherto been detected, and the builders are obliged to make use of burnt shells for their mortar, 
 for which I have lately advised them to substitute burnt coral. — Dr. Good. 
 
 Animals are often contemplated under the three divisions of terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial. 
 Plants may be contemplated in the same manner. Among animals it is probable that the largest 
 number consists of the first division; [the land animals,] yet from the great variety of submarine 
 genera that are known, this is uncertain. Among vegetables, however, it is highly probable that 
 the largest number belongs to the submarine section, if we may judge from the almost countless 
 species of fuci, and other equally prolific tribes of an aqueous and subaqueous origin, and the 
 incalculable individuals that appertain to each species; and more especially if we take into consideration 
 the greater equality of temperature which must necessarily exist in the submarine hills and valleys. 
 — Dr. Good. 
 
 * * * * After all the wonderful and important discoveries which have been developed in it, 
 natural history is even yet but little more than in its infancy, and zoonomy is scarcely entitled to 
 the name of a science in any sense. *********** 
 
 But the globe has been upturned from its foundation; and with the wreck of a great part of 
 its substance has intermingled the wreck of a great part of its inhabitants. It is a most 
 
 2K 
 
138 APPENDIX. 
 
 extraordinary fact, that of the five or six distinct layers or strata which compose the solid crust of 
 the earth, the lowermost, or granite, contains not a particle of animal or vegetable materials of any 
 kind; the second, or transition formation, as Werner has denominated it, is filled, indeed, with fossil 
 relics of animals, but of animals not one of which is to be traced in a living state at the present 
 day; and it is not until we ascend to the third or Jloelz stratification that we meet with a single 
 organic remain of known animal structures. — Dr. Good. 
 
 [Have any of these organic remains of unknown or antediluvian animals ever been found in 
 Australia? With the single exception of Buenos Ayres, I do not recollect of any signs of an ancient 
 world being found south of the southern tropic. Of this, however, I am not positive. — J. L.] 
 
 The sun is the great physical creator and dispenser of light and heat, and the supporter and 
 modifier of animal life on our little planet. His bulk is to that of the earth, in round numbers, as 
 1,11)0,000 to 1; and his density or weight as about 355,000 to 1. Hence his influence upon the 
 earth's surface must be immense and overwhelming. It is when in his perihelion, where his angular 
 velocity is the greatest, and his disk the broadest, that he pours his direct rays upon the southern 
 hemisphere. 
 
 " The sun's rays," says Herschell, " are the ultimate source of almost every motion which takes 
 place on the surface of the earth. 
 
 " By its heat are produced all winds, and those disturbances in the electrical equilibrium of the 
 atmosphere which give rise to the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism. ****♦• * • * 
 * * The change of longitude in twenty-four mean solar hours averages 0° 59' 8". 33, — but 
 about the 31st of December it amounts to 1° 1' 9". 9, and about the 1st of July to only 0° 5T 
 11". 5. Such are the extreme limits, and such the mean value of the sun's apparent angular velocity 
 in its annual orbit." 
 
 Thus it appears that the apparent motion, or angular velocity of the sun in December, exceeds 
 its velocity in July in the proportion of 36 to 31; and that the apparent diameter of its disk in 
 December exceeds its diameter in July in the proportion of 32 to 31. 
 
 " The variation of the sun's angular velocity," continues Herschell, " is, then, much greater in 
 proportion than that of its distance — fully twice as great. Hence we are led to conclude that the 
 angular velocity is in the inverse proportion, not of the distance simply, but of the square of the 
 distance. •••••• 
 
 "The fluctuation of the sun's distance, [about 3,000,000 of miles,] amounts to nearly stth of its 
 mean quantity, and consequently, the fluctuation in the sun's direct heating power to double this, 
 or tjth of the whole." 
 
 Here let me ask, if the greater proximity of the sun, when in his perihelion, compensates for the 
 seven or eight days annual absence from the southern hemisphere 1 This question has either been 
 evaded, or answered in the aflirmative by astronomers, — but how stands the fact? It has been 
 said that "the greater proximity of the sun compensates exactly for his more rapid description, (or 
 speed,) and thus an equilibrium of heat is, as it were, maintained. Were it not for this, th« 
 eccentricity of the earth's orbit would naturally influence the transition of the seasons." 
 
 A bare glance at the two hemispheres is sufficient to show the inaccuracy of the above statement 
 The greater comparative heat of the northern hemisphere is well known. The intense cold of the 
 high southern latitudes, far exceeding the cold of the corresponding latitudes of the north, is a great 
 annoyance to every navigator that has approached the confines or entered the limits of the antarctic 
 or southern circle. 
 
w APPENDIX. 139 
 
 The difference of animal life in the two hemispheres of our earth being chiefly caused by the 
 influence of the parent sun, . how much more apparent must be the influence of that immense 
 luminary in the neighboring planets. Are the planets and satellites of the solar system inhabited ? 
 Doubtless they are, but from their different distances from the central sun, and from their different 
 densities, they must be peopled by a totally different class of rational beings from those who inhabit 
 any part of our earth. If the small difference of 3,000,000 of miles of distance, caused by the 
 eccentricity of the earth's orbit has produced even limited but perceptible effects upon our earth, 
 who can even imagine the effect upon the inferior and superior planets of our system 1 If our 
 southern hemisphere feel the sensible approach of the sun in his perihelion, and if the sun's proximity 
 takes effect upon its surface, how much greater must be the effect upon another planet moving in an 
 inferior orbit? It is difficult, if not impossible, for the human imagination to conceive, or human 
 ingenuity to frame, a rational hypotheses concerning the planetary inhabitants of Mercury, Venus, 
 the Moon or Mars. As to the Moon, her distance from the sun, being the same as that of the 
 earth, would make no difference in that respect; — but the immense length of the lunar days places 
 her out of all rules of earthly climates, — and destroys all semblance of similarity to our earth, and 
 renders her more unlike it than even Mercury or Mars. ********** g ut muc \ i 
 remains unknown upon our little earth. 
 
 Religion, civilization, and science, are undoubtedly destined ultimately to overspread the habitable 
 globe. The southern zone will, in the fullness of time, be settled by an enterprising, industrious 
 and moral people. The persevering ingenuity of man must at length overcome all physical and 
 moral obstacles that impede the march of improvement, even in the hitherto semi-savage southern 
 zone. 
 
 The Araucanians in South America, and the New-Zealanders upon their remote islands may, at 
 some future period, become civilized, — and if so, will be among the first in rank. As they are 
 superior to their neighbors in physical and intellectual strength and energy, they would present the 
 best natural stock upon which to engraft the scions of religion and the arts of civilized life. 
 Separated from continental neighbors by the circumfluent ocean, as are the New-Zealanders, these 
 robust islanders might, if civilized, become a great maritime people. They would be the sailors of 
 the southern zone. But will this happen before the year 2000 ? 
 
 It may be of use to nations in planting colonies, and to societies to know that life is a 
 greater struggle against the elements in the southern than in the northern zone. That civilization 
 there, is not impossible, but much more difficult than in the corresponding latitudes at the north. 
 
 Civilization has made slow progress, until recently, in the northern zone; — the march of science 
 is met at the outset by many obstacles — among which may be mentioned: 
 
 1. The intense labor required of careworn man to provide for his physical wants. 
 
 2. The amazing shortness of the period of human life. 
 
 The immense improvements made in agriculture and in the arts, during the last half century, 
 and the still increasing energy and ingenuity of man, will do away, in a measure, or remove the 
 first obstacle; — but the shortness of man's earthly existence will ever be a bar to the rapid progress 
 of science. The only remedy for this is, and ever has been, for one man to labor and another 
 to enter upon the fruits of his labor. One must begin where the other came to an end. 
 
 The facts and remarks above stated lead to some important collateral conclusions. If man, as 
 has been shown, is modified and influenced by the air he breathes, and the exhalations from the 
 
140 APPENDIX. 
 
 soil he treads, this fact will account for the diversity and vast variety of the races. If physical 
 causes have such overwhelming effects, why seek for other causes of variety among the different 
 tribes of men t The fair inference from this mass of facts, (although collected for another purpose, 
 and their application only incidental,) the fair inference, I say. would go to establish the unitt of 
 
 THE HUMAN RACE. 
 
 It may be humbling to human pride to admit that men degenerate when transplanted from one 
 zone to another, still the knowledge of this fact will not be the less useful and important. It will 
 arouse the zeal and stimulate the exertion of civilized emigrants to the southern zone to overcome 
 the ever present causes of degeneracy which surround them. 
 
 It may derogate from what is called the dignity of human nature, by making man, to a 
 limited extent, a slave of the elements; — but let us remember that man is only in the infancy of 
 his existence, that he is only beginning to live while on the earth. 
 
 "His knowledge fitted to his state and placcj 
 His time a moment and a point his space." 
 
 The true dignity of man is founded upon the admitted philosophical fact of his being destined 
 for eternity, — for immortality. 
 
 No view of the human race from the earliest history of civilized or savage tribes can be 
 complete; and every theory on the subject must be subversive of sound philosophy, inconsistent with 
 the wisdom and goodness of God, and deplorably defective that does not admit the eternity or 
 
 MAN. 
 
 Here I shall close. I am willing to wait until future and further discoveries are made in the 
 Austral zone. It is necessary to pause until some of the Cimmerian darkness is dispelled that now 
 broods over the " unfinished fates" of the natives of New-Holland. At present, little more is known 
 of the interior of that island than of the surface of one of the satellites of Saturn. J. L. 
 
 It is unnecessary to add any thing by way of argument, to show the important bearing of this 
 mass of evidence on the subject of the volume, except a single remark. 
 
 A difference has been shown to exist between the Mexican and Peruvian races, although they were 
 one family. If, then, evidence can be produced proving that natural causes effect differences in the 
 same families over all the world, the point is established that original unity may be fairly inferred. 
 
 Again, the whole tenor of the main volume goes to prove the unity of the human race by 
 d plain and credible narrative of the peopling of America. This essay has added numerous facts 
 strongly confirming this truth and drawn from other sources. J. D. Jr. 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, February, 1839. 
 
APPENDIX. 141 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 VIDE PAGE 97, 
 
 Pexeg means u disrumpere in partes," and this, literally translated, has given rise to a curious and wild 
 hypothesis, supposing America to have been a portion of the old world, but suddenly sundered from 
 it by a violent convulsion of nature, carrying its proportion of inhabitants with it. The greatest 
 supporter of this theory is the Rev. Mr. Catcott of England who follows the celebrated biblical critic, 
 Bengelius, whose words are these, in his Ordo Tempnrum : " Peleg was named from the division of 
 the earth, which* happened in his days. The earth, after the deluge, was divided by degrees, by a 
 genealogical and political division, which is expressed by the word nxBJ and mai. But a very 
 different kind of division is meant by the word ruSsu (NepeLeGE), namely, a physical and geographical 
 division, which happened at once, and which was so remarkable, and of such extent, as suitably to 
 answer the naming the patriarch therefrom. By this word (peLeG) that kind of division is principally 
 denoted, which is applicable to land and water. From whence, in the Hebrew tongue, Peleg signifies 
 a river; and, in the Greek, Pelagos, the sea." From this meaning of the word, Mr. Catcott says, we 
 may conclude that the earth was split, or divided asunder, for a very great extent, and the sea came 
 between, in the days of Peleg. Now, he thinks, from the disjunction of America from this part of 
 the world by a great sea, it may be allowed, that this was the grand division intended by the 
 passage under consideration. And, therefore, he supposes, with Bengelius, "that soon after the confusion 
 and dispersion, some of the sons of Ham went out of Africa into that part of America, which now 
 looks towards Africa: and the earth being divided, or split asunder, in the days of Peleg, they, with 
 their posterity, the Americans, were, for many ages, separated from the rest of mankind, &c." Mr. 
 Catcott, in order to strengthen this explanation, brings two quotations from two ancient writers; one 
 from Plato, and another from ^Elian's History of various things. Plato introduces an event, which 
 happened in the most early ages of the world, in his Timcsus, of a vast tract of land, or an island 
 greater than Lybia and Asia, situated beyond the bounds of Africa and Europe, which, by the 
 concussion of an earthquake, was swallowed up in the ocean. Plato introduces this fact, as related 
 by Solon, who, while he was in Egypt, had heard it from an old Egyptian priest; when he 
 discoursed with him concerning the most ancient events. The priest informed him, "that this island 
 was called Atlantis, and was larger than Lybia and Asia; that it had an easy passage from it to 
 many other islands, and from these to all that continent, which was opposite; that, within the mouth 
 or entrance of the ocean, there was a gulph, with a narrow entry ; but that the land, which 
 surrounded the sea, called Pelagos, ' where the division was made, might justly be called a continent. 
 In after times, there happened a dreadful earthquake and inundation of water, which continued for 
 the space of a whole day and night, and this island, Atlantis, being covered and overwhelmed by the 
 waves, sunk beneath the ocean, and disappeared, &c." 
 
 The other narrative, from JElian, is as follows, which corroborates this, and, indeed, would inclin 8 
 one to believe the tradition of so great a catastrophe could not arise without some just foundation; he 
 says : " Theopompus relates a certain discourse, that passed between Midas, the Phrygian, and Silenus, 
 
142 APPENDIX. 
 
 when these two hud discoursed of many things, Silenus, above all, tells Midas, that Europe, Asia and 
 Lybia ought to be considered as islands, which the ocean wholly surrounded; and that the part of the 
 world, which lay beyond this, ought only to be esteemed the continent; as it was of an immense ex- 
 tent, and nourished very different, and vastly larger kinds of animals, than this side of the world." 
 Then Mr. Catcott says, " from what has been offered, we may conclude, that Africa and America were 
 once joined, or, at least, separated from each other, but by a very narrow gulph; and that, some time 
 after the flood, the earth was divided, or parted asunder, probably by means of an earthquake, and 
 then this middle land sunk beneath the ocean." 
 
 This hypothesis however is untenable on many grounds. 
 
 1. It is not a natural method of accounting for facts. We see nothing of the kind now occurring. 
 It must have been a miraculous event. And when natural methods can be used to produce a 
 given end miracles arc not wrought. 
 
 2. It is unsupported by proper evidence. We have no authentic account of any such disruption. 
 Two heathen sages think it may have been so. If it occurred, it must have been recorded both 
 by revelation and tradition in the old and new worlds, but we find no such testimony. 
 
 3. Human life could not have survived the shock of such a convulsion, and it is therefore an 
 unsatisfactory mode of accounting for the peopling of America. 
 
 4. On this hypothesis, there is no means of accounting for the strange distinction between tho 
 civilized and the savage aborigines of America. 
 

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