202 Atlantis. 



the civil and religious polity which they enjoyed was mainly the 

 result of ages of growth among the nations who preceded them. 



The case is not without familiar parallels in history, illustrating the 

 vitality of civilization, especially when conquered amid the physical 

 monuments of its culture. The survival of the fittest is shown in the 

 history of our own tongue, and such may have been, by parity of 

 reasoning, the fate of the early American language, which would have 

 survived, in great measure, the destruction of all other attainments. 

 To repeat, Avhat seems an apt figure, the page presented to us by the 

 Archaeology of tropical America, must be regarded in the light of a 

 palimpsest, which, beneath the rude characters inscribed by the Aztec, 

 retains, nevertheless, the impress of a higher and more refined 

 civilization. Viewing this culture, then, in its general aspects, eliminat- 

 ing those features evidently engrafted upon it by the barbarism of its 

 conquerors, and regarding it as a creature of indigenous growth in the 

 spot where it first became known to Europeans, it is claimed to pos- 

 sess characteristics so analogous to the ancient systems of the Mediter- 

 ranean nations, as to offer legitimate ground for inferring communica- 

 tion at a period when the latter had long emerged from primitive 

 conditions, and established well defined dogmas of culture and religious 

 belief. 



It is manifestly impossible within present limits to take more 

 than a cursory view of these points of comparison. 



The ancient Mexicans, like the Egyptians, are chiefly known to us 

 through those enduring monuments which are the memorials of their 

 former greatness. Scattered through the secluded valleys and crown- 

 ing the picturesque heights of tropical America, are the raoss-covered 

 ruins of temples and palaces which excite the admiration and wonder 

 of the beholder, at the proficiency in the arts of masonry and sculp- 

 ture which they display. Such architectural ornamentation evidences 

 "a long stage of unrecorded development." "In the monuments," 

 says an eloquent essayist, "we have the human deposit of the ages — 

 the truth of the historic past. Architecture, in this view, is the geol- 

 ogy of humanity. Ceasing its testimony at the present surface of the 

 globe, geology tells nothing of that subsequent history which com- 

 mences with the existence of man ; here architecture resumes the 

 thread of the narrative and bears witness of that compound existence 

 to which it owes its origin. That consecutiveness which is dimly des- 

 cried in documents, in architecture is apparent ; that human progress 

 which all belifeve, but which so few show forth distinctly, is beautifully 

 narrated in the monumental series." 



In both Egypt and America the pyramid represents the highest 



