relate to the earliest of the colonial ancestry of the present descendants, who, gifted with a portion of the knowledge of the civilized tribes from whom they emanated in Asia, communicated to their children a limited account of those arts and inventions; but obliged by the scarcity of animal and vegetable food in the new country, to devote the principal portion of their time and that of their children towards producing subsistence; and deprived of those monuments of art they had been accustomed to view in their own country, and unable to give in idea similar knowledge to their children, which had been familiar to them in substance, the latter gradually sunk into the barbarism they have displayed for some centuries past; their superstitions accumulating as each generation was further removed from the earliest inhabitants, whose superior civilization, which they had imperfectly disseminated, inspired those unpolished children with a spirit of divine admiration. Probably aware that religious ceremonials would alone act as a check on a nation without the means of improving their uncivilized state, the dying patriarchs claimed in consequence divine honours, which they were enabled to effect by improving upon the unqualified devotion displayed by their admiring descendants."

We find then, nearly in all barbarous nations, the relics of a more ancient system of civilization far superior to that which they at present possess; and traditions ascribing the invention of each of these better processes to some celestial being. The same fact meets us in the early history of most civilized nations the ancient Greeks, like the modern islanders of the South Sea, averred that they received the first

elements of civilization from the gods, that is, from a race of beings more perfect than themselves. There is a universal consent that the first impulses to improvement were received from a foreign source, and no tribe or nation has yet been found that asserted the spontaneous development of its civilization.

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CHAPTER XI.

EVIDENCES OF LOST CIVILIZATION.

WHEN North America was first discovered by Europeans, it was found inhabited by barbarous races, unacquainted with most of the common arts of life. Among the most savage of these Indians were the inhabitants of the wilds on the Mississippi and Ohio, who not only were destitute of civilization, but seemed utterly incapable of appreciating its blessings. Centuries elapsed; the red men, untamed and untameable, retired before the skill, enterprise, and science of the Anglo-Americans; their forests fell beneath the axe, the tangled thickets which covered their soil were cleared away by the cultivator, but their labours instead of revealing a virgin soil, have exhibited to the wondering colonists unquestionable traces of the existence in these regions, at an unknown but very remote age, of a highly civilized race, whose very name has been lost to history.

Vestiges of tumuli, fortified encampments, mounds and trenches, are found in Western America as far north as the range of the buffalo; their western limit is not known; but on the south they extend through the isthmus of Darien to Peru.* They vary in con

*It may be necessary to state that part of this description (ut quiddam notum propriumque) is taken from an article contributed to the Athenæum, by permission of the proprietors.

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struction according to the nature of the soil: in the north they are principally built of earth, but on approaching the Cordilleras they are found to serve as bases for massive stone edifices now in ruins. A fortress at Marietta, and another at the mouth of the Great Miami, are described, by competent persons, as constructed with considerable engineering skill. Such works, it is manifest, could not have been raised by the Indians discovered on the Ohio, who were mere untutored savages, unacquainted with any useful arts save those of the rudest manufacture and most simple necessity. They were also divided into small tribes, having little or no connexion with each other, while there is strong evidence for believing that those who erected these monuments formed one people. The larger camps are constructed near watercourses, and at intervals along the stream tumuli have been raised, which would be visible one from the other were the country cleared of its present forest.

These remains have very recently attracted the earnest attention of American antiquarians, but particularly of the Historical Society of Ohio, which has been in a great degree instituted for their special investigation. Mr. Delafield, at the desire of the Society, has examined several of them personally, and states as the result of his observations, that "a map of North America, delineating each of these ruins in situ, would 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." Garcilasso de la Vega informs us

that such a practice was common among the ancient Peruvians, and that a regular system of telegraphic signals was established throughout the empire of the Incas.

But further inquiries have shewn that these encampments were not all constructed for military purposes; the form, the position, and the arrangement of many, rendering them obviously unsuited to the purpose of a fortress or magazine. There is a remarkable structure at Circleville, described by General Harrison, which seems to have been designed for a place of public assembly.

"The square," he says, "has such a number of gateways as seem intended to facilitate the entrance of those who would attack it. And both it and the circle were commanded by the mound, rendering it an easier task to take than to defend it." Some of the locations appear to have been chosen with direct reference to the facilities which the soil affords for cultivation. Agriculture, in ancient times, seems to have been a great cause of men associating together, and the early operations of farming were undertaken by a community, and not by isolated individuals. All the agricultual operations of ancient Egypt were carried on in the vicinity of cities, for we find it distinctly stated in the history of Joseph, "the food of the field which was round about every city laid he up in the same." It does not appear that these agricultural associations were formed merely for defence, they seem to have been rather designed for co-operation. The structures in the state of Ohio, which most probably were erected to facilitate cultivation, give evidence that the neighbourhood was populous by their great extent, but at the same time,