Aboriginal Race of America. 217 



rant warriors and hunters in a simple form of society, and 

 those of the members of a complicated state, possessed of 

 property, and even, as described by Clavigero, of a species of 

 science and literature." 



This gradation of the ruder into the more perfect art of 

 hieroglyphic writing, not only affords an additional argument 

 for the unity of origin of the American nations, but also con- 

 stitutes another proof of the distinctness of their race ; for 

 this picture-writing, even in its most elaborate forms, bears no 

 other than the most general resemblance to any exotic hiero- 

 glyphics, nor indeed has a real equivalent been detected be- 

 tween them. We may therefore be permitted to repeat our 

 conviction that the annals of the Mexicans bear no indispu- 

 table evidence of immigration from Asia ; but, on the other 

 hand, that they are susceptible of as many different interpre- 

 tations as there are theories to be supported. 



It is remarked by Dr. Coates, that the Mongolian theory, 

 which we are now considering, is objectionable on account of 

 its vastness. " To derive the population of the whole of the 

 American continent from the northwestern angle, requires the 

 supposition of a continued chain of colonies during a long 

 succession of ages, acquiring and using an immense diversity 

 of languages, and pursuing each other along the huge ridge 

 of the great American Andes, from Prince William's Sound 

 in the far north, to the extremity of Terra del Fuego, a dis- 

 tance of one hundred and fifteen degrees of latitude, or of 

 eight thousand miles. This long succession of occurrences 

 is absolutely necessary to the theory ; which is tlius liable to 

 the difficulty of requiiing two extensive hypotheses at once. 

 Several hundred colonies must be imagined to have issued 

 from the same point, all completely isolated, as their languages 

 abundantly show, unconnected by peaceful intercourse, but 

 urging each other by war and the destruction of the game, 

 throughout a third part of the circumference of the globe. 



" The traces of such a series of human waves would be 

 naturally looked for in a tendency to advance population in 

 the north, from which they emanated, and where the pressure 

 must have been greatest and the colonization of longest dura- 



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