dent that the
Indian tribes are of far greater antiquity than the Anglo Saxon. Not
only so, but they appear on philological proofs to be older, in their
national phasis, if we except, perhaps, the Chinese, than the present
inhabitants of the north-eastern coasts of Asia, and the East India
Islands. But we are not to pursue this topic. The general facts are
merely thrown out, to denote the far reaching and imperious
requirements of philology.

When we examine the American continent, with a view to its ancient
occupancy, we perceive its surface scarified with moats and walls--its
alluvial level plains and vallies bearing mounds, teocalli and
pyramids. Its high interior altitudes, in the tropical regions, are
covered with the ruins of temples and cities--and even in the temperate
latitudes of the north, its barrows and mounds are now found to yield
objects of exquisite sculpture, and many of its forests, beyond the
Alleghanies, exhibit the regularity of antique garden beds and
furrows,[2] amid the heaviest forest trees. Objects of art and
implements of war, and even of science, are turned up by the plough.
These are silent witnesses. With the single exception of the
inscription stone, found in the great tumulus of Grave Creek, in
Virginia, in the year 1838,[3] there is no monument of art on the
continent, yet discovered, which discloses an alphabet, and thus
promises to address posterity in an articulate voice. We must argue
chiefly from the character of the antique works of art.

[2] MSS. of the Am. Ethn. Society. Vide Catalogue, Vol. I.

[3] Trans. Am. Ethn. Society. Vol. I.

But although the apparent hieroglyphics of Yucatan and Central America
have not been read, nor a history of much incident, or a remote
antiquity, deduced from the pictorial scrolls of Mexico, it is
impossible not to assign to the era of American antiquities, a degree
of arts, science, agriculture and general civilization, to which the
highest existing nomadic or hunter tribes had no pretence. It is a
period of obscurity, of which inquirers might perhaps say, that the
darkness itself is made to speak. It tells of the displacement of
light. All indeed beyond the era of Columbus, is shrouded in historical
gloom. We are thus confined within the short cycle of some three
hundred and fifty years. A little less than twelve generations of men.
Beyond this period, we have an ante-historical period, which is filled,
almost exclusively, with E