1 882. 123 Trans. N. Y. Ac. Sci. 



number of the metals, gold and silver as ornaments, tin and copper 

 combmed to form bronze, which was used for arms and utensils. The 

 structures which they erected were frequently composed of stones of 

 large size, carefully dressed and laid in mortar, with the interiors plas- 

 tered and painted. The external architectural decoration was fre- 

 quently exceedingly elaborate and often very tasteful. Their rehgion 

 was apparently sun-worship, and they frequently offered human sac- 

 rifices. 



The monuments of Central America and Peru show such resem- 

 blance to those of Mexico, that we cannot doubt that the people occu- 

 pying all these countries must have been in close communication, and 

 intimately related. The monuments of Central America have been 

 described and illustrated by Stevens and Catherwood, Waldeck, Nor- 

 man, etc., and their number, magnitude and ornamentation have excited 

 great interest and admiration ; but it is believed that only a small por- 

 tion of these monuments has yet been examined, and that in the dense 

 forests of Honduras and Yucatan there yet remain a large number of 

 towns and individual structures to reward the efforts of future explorers. 



In Peru, as in Central America, the population in possession of these 

 countries at the time of the Spanish conquest was the same that had 

 erected the monuments ; but in both, as in Mexico, the iron hand of 

 despotism and religious bigotry has nearly exterminated the population, 

 and has destroyed their records, until their characteristics and history 

 are scarcely better known than those of the Egyptians and Assyrians. 



The monuments of the Incas and their predecessors in South Amer- 

 ica are briefly described by the Spanish historians, and have lately been 

 studied by one of our number, Mr. E. G. Squier; and their magni- 

 tude and interest may be inferred from his statements that the masonry 

 of some of the Peruvian buildings excels anything he has elsewhere 

 seen ; that the great Incarial roads extending from Quito to the fron- 

 tiers of Chili were constructed with more labor and engineering skill 

 than our Pacific Railroad, and that one fortress guarding a pass in the 

 Andes contains more masonry than all of our coast defences from 

 Maine to Florida. Although exhibiting |local differences, the similari- 

 ties in the remains of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico, Central Amer- 

 , ica and Peru, are such that we are compelled to believe that their civ- 

 ilization was generically the same, and that all these peoples were off- 

 shoots from a common stock. The monuments in Central America 

 are often covered with inscriptions, while these are almost wantmg in 

 Mexico and Peru ; but both these peoples used paper for writing, and 

 were as little in the habit of making inscriptions on stone as we are, or 

 as most civilized nations of Europe. Therefore the absence of inscrip- 

 tions cannot be accepted as evidence of inferior enlightenment. 



