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able at the first glance, to recognize in some of these statues, the re- 

 presentations of several of the gods of the Mexican Pantheon. Among 

 these was Tlalocthe, God of Rain, and the second of the Aztec Triad, 

 corresponding in his essential attributes with Vishun of the Hindu 

 Mythology. 



The small figure resembling some animal couchant was, until very 

 recently, preserved on a remarkable rock on the side of the volcano of 

 Omatepec, and regarded with high veneration by the Inchans. It was only 

 after many years of search that the priests were able to find and remove it. 

 The granitic vase, distinguished by the ornaments, called grecques by 

 Humboldt, (and which characterize the ruins at Mitla in Mexico,) was dug 

 up near the city of Nicaragua. The spot had been a cemetery of the 

 ancient inhabitants. Another relic of the same material, and with a 

 like style of ornament, accompanies the vase, and was found in the same 

 neighborhood. It seems to have been designed as a pedestal for a small 

 statue. 



I have several of the funereal vases of the ancient inhabitants, in which 

 the bones and ashes of the dead were packed after the decomposition of 

 the flesh or after burning. It is a singular fact that all these vases were 

 modelled after the human skull. I will send these as soon as the drawings 

 of them are finished. 



I may mention that the largest and most elaborate monuments which 

 fell under my notice in Nicaragua, exist in the little island of Pensacola, 

 near the base of the extinct volcano of Momobacho. They weigh a num- 

 ber of tons each, and are distinguished as being wrought from blocks of 

 sand stone, a material which is not found on the islancl, nor, so far as I 

 could learn, within many miles of it, on the main land. 



I shall be happy to contribute whatever monuments of the past, or relics 

 of aboriginal art which I possess, or may hereafter collect, towards forming 

 a National Archaeological Museum, under the single stipulation that they 

 shall have a specific place assigned them in the Institution, and that my 

 classification when finally made, shall not be disturbed. You know that 

 I have long cherished the plan of forming a grand collection, which should 

 illustrate the arts of the aboriginies of every part of the continent, but 

 more particularly of our own country. Small and detached collections, 

 such as individuals may be able to form, can serve no good purpose in the 

 way of comparison and mutual illustration, and are always liable to be 

 destroyed by accident, or dispersed, and, piece by piece, irretrievably lost, 

 and I am sure, when it comes to be known that a place has been set apart 

 for these things in the Smithsonian Institution, most persons possessing 

 collections would not hesitate to surrender them to augment the central 

 stock. And if our public agents in foreign countries, our army and naval 

 officers in frontier or foreign service, and our traders generally residing 

 abroad, were properly informed that a collection of this kind was going on, 

 and that the necessary cost of procuring and transmitting monuments or 

 relics of interest would be reimbursed them ; if this were done, I feel sure 

 that an American Archaeological Museum, worthy of our age and country, 

 would soon grow up. It is a fact not at all creditable to us, that we have 

 no public collection of this kind worthy to be mentioned, in the United 

 States, while some of the museums of Europe are really rich in relics of 

 aboriginal American art. M. de Longperier, conservateur des Antiquites 

 of the Louvre, has recently published a catalogue of American antiquities, 



