198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



translation of the abundant records of Yucatan. But no one can 

 compare the pyramidal structures of central Mexico, Tehuante- 

 pec, and Huanaco, or the style of architectural ornamentation of 

 Mitla, Uxmal, and Granchimu, without feeling that they are the 

 work of a people who were generically the same. The striking 

 and peculiar images in gold, silver, and alloy, as well as the pot- 

 tery of Peru, of Bogota, and Chiriqui, afford confirmatory evi- 

 dence of this unity. 



The intercourse between these neighboring and cognate nations 

 was undoubtedly for the most part by sea. Columbus met traders 

 from cities of Central America at Ruatan, where they came in a 

 vessel of considerable size, carrying sail and manned by twenty 

 sailors ; and Pizarro, on his way to Peru, when near the equator, 

 encountered a vessel of the Peruvians, which he says " was like a 

 European caravel," and was loaded with merchandise, vases, mir- 

 rors of burnished silver, and curious fabrics of cotton and wool, 

 the latter undoubtedly made from the wool of the llama. With 

 such vessels it would be easy to pass from the Mexican to the 

 Central American and thence to the South American ports ; and 

 we have incidental evidence that this was done. Louis Hoffman, 

 a German mining engineer, who was one of the scientific corps 

 attached to the staff of Maximilian, and who on professional duty 

 visited all the mining districts of Mexico, tells me that on the 

 Pacific coast, directly south from the city of Mexico, in a region 

 abounding in ruins yet unstudied, at the mouth of a river, is what 

 was once a large seaport town. From this point the passage 

 would be direct and easy to Tehuantepec, Panama, and thence 

 southward. 



The question of the origin of the Mexican and Peruvian civili- 

 zation has been much discussed, and various views have been 

 advanced in regard to it : by some, that it was the fruit of seed 

 borne across the Atlantic by the Phoenician traders, and was 

 therefore of European origin ; by others, that it was a remnant of 

 the civilization that pervaded the fabulous country of Atlantis, 

 which once stretched from Central America far over toward the 

 Old World, from which it was separated by a strait that was 

 easily passed in the original dissemination of the human race. 



It must be said, however, that with the exception of some feat- 

 ures which are common to all phases of human culture, and are 

 the spontaneous outgrowth of qualities which are inherent in all 

 peoples or are the records of creeds or customs which prevailed 

 in the cradle of the human race, wherever that be there is noth- 

 ing whatever to indicate a borrowing from Egypt or Tyre or any 

 European nation. On the contrary, there are an originality and 

 independence in all the forms in which this civilization was em- 

 bodied that prove that it was either indigenous and grew from 



