represented.

The various kinds of structures and relics found throughout the country
include pyramids, temples, tombs, causeways, statues, fortifications,
terraced hills, rock-sculpture, idols, painted caves, calendar stones,
sacrificial stones, habitations, canals, pottery, mummies, _cenotes_,
or wells, &c. The northernmost point where any monument in stone is
encountered is at Quemada, in the State of Zacatecas, which seems to
mark the limit of the stronger civilisation of Southern Mexico, in
contrast to the less virile civilisation which seems to be indicated by
the clay and _adobe_ structures of the northern part of Mexico and of
the adjoining territory embodied at the present day in Arizona,
California, and New Mexico, beyond the Rio Grande.

[Illustration: PREHISTORIC MEXICO: RUINS OF EL FOLOC AT CHICHEN-YTZA,
YUCATAN.]

But once more we ask, "Where did these people come from originally?" It
has been said that the origin of the people of a continent belongs not
to the realm of history but of philosophy. Well may it be so, but we
are not content. What was the origin of the first peoples of the
Americas, and where did the principle of their barbaric civilisation
come from? There were the fables of the lost continent of Atlantis--of
which, geologically, part of North America is a portion--to be
considered: and perchance, so thought the earlier thinkers, these
peoples, remnants of its population. But the generally accepted theory
assigns Eastern Asia as the source, and analogies are adduced in
architecture, customs, religions, physiognomy, and a multitude of
conditions. As to language, careful study has shown, on the other hand,
that none of the numerous indigenous tongues of the present-day Mexican
aborigines bear any resemblance whatever to Asiatic tongues, except
that some likeness between Otomie and Chinese is traced: whilst some
points of similarity are adduced with the speech of the Esquimaux. Last
century an Englishman--Lord Kingsborough--spent a fortune in
endeavouring to prove the theory, which had been advanced a hundred
years earlier, that these emigrating tribes of the Mexican plateau were
those lost ten of Israel! And he published a magnificent work,
reproducing the best examples of their picture-writing, to this end.
Indeed, in earlier times, analogies have run riot in attempts to prove
a common origin for fables and for real incidents, with those of
Biblical narrative. Among the prehistoric civilisa