12 AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY. 



It remains to mention, with great brevity, the manner in which the various hints 

 from history have been used in accounting for the population of the new world. 



Many writers upon this subject, particularly those of ancient date, refer to nume- 

 rous authors, whose works, however famous in their time, are now seldom perused, 

 and whose names, to most persons, will convey no definite idea of the value of their 

 opinions. Among those who were supposed to be able to throw light upon the sub- 

 ject, out of the abundance of their learning, were cejebrated hebraists, biblical 

 critics, and professors of history, the expression of whose views is often quite 

 incidental, and founded upon facts or analogies which happened to strike them 

 while pursuing investigations but indirectly connected with it. Annalists, geo- 

 graphers, and chronologists, who made a special study of cosmogony, are more 

 legitimate authorities ; and authors who wrote concerning any portions of this 

 country from personal observation, or as compilers of the narratives of others, are 

 entitled to a due consideration of their impressions in regard to the probable 

 sources of its population. 



It would be too wide a departure from the object of this cursory review to attempt 

 a scrutiny of the circumstances under which opinions were formed, or the grounds 

 on which they were based, beyond such allusions as in the course of a rapid sum- 

 mary have been, or may be, casually introduced. 



The theory of an indigenous origin of men and animals in America, goes behind 

 all others, of course, whether relating to a part only, or to the whole of the conti- 

 nent. This view has not been uncommon among writers of a certain school. 

 Cornelius de Pauw, one of the philosophic coterie of Frederic the great, argued that 

 life in the New World was not only distinct in its origin but of inferior quality, the 

 men having less vigor of mind and body, and animals less of spirit and strength 

 than their congeners elsewhere. 1 



Count Carli, an Italian of distinguished scientific attainments, undertook a refu- 

 tation of the opinions of de Pauw, and at the same time endeavored to establish 

 his own in favor of the former existence of the island or continent of Atlantis, five 

 or six thousand years before our era; which he supported by a learned analysis of 

 mythological and historical traditions, geological phenomena, and astronomical 

 calculations. 2 



The hypothesis of submerged land in the Atlantic Ocean is, in fact, that which 

 is most generally resorted to by those who suppose the western continents to have 

 been peopled anterior to the flood of the Scriptures. 



Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, whose history of the discovery of the New World was 

 compiled from the manuscripts of Columbus, held that the inhabitants of Yucatan 

 were descended from Ethiopians. Oviedo, under whose administration as Director of 

 the mines of St. Domingo, the natives melted away beneath the severity of their task- 

 work, in his History of the Indies affirms, that the Antilles are the Hesperides of 

 the ancients. Andrew Thevet, a Frenchman of great learning, but accused of 



3 Recherches Philosophiqnes sur les AnuSricaines, &c. 



3 A French translation of Carli's American Letters, with notes and additions by Lefebre de Ville- 

 bruue, was published in Boston and Paris simultaneously, in 1*788. 



