40 . ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



acquaintance with their civil and religious customs, and the motives and results of 

 military operations, which seem to imply the possession of an insight the reverse 

 of prophetic, but equally supernatural. He informs us that several other nations, 

 besides the Atlans, Cutans, Iztacans, and Oghuzians, had reached various parts of 

 America before the modern Europeans; such as the Mayans or Malays, the Scan- 

 dinavians, the Chinese, the Ainus of Eastern Asia, the Nigritians or African negroes, 

 &c. ; but, as they did not settle in or near Kentucky, they did not fall under his 

 present scope. He states that the country watered by the Ohio and its branches 

 was the centre of the Atalan empire, which was divided into "several provinces, and 

 was ruled by a powerful monarch of the Atlas family ; that an intercourse was kept 

 up, more or less regularly, between all the primitive nations and empires, from the 

 Ganges to the Mississippi ; and that Chrishna or Hercules, and Ramachandra, two 

 heroes of India, visited Atala and the court of the western monarchs, which is called 

 one of the heavens on earth by the holy books of the East. But, he says, the 

 Atlantes of the interior of America were separated from the rest of the Atlantic 

 empire by that dreadful convulsion of nature which is recorded in the oldest annals 

 of many nations. In this cataclysm, which is signified by the division of the earth 

 under Peleg, the flood of Ogyges or Ogug, and the Sanscrit convulsion of the White 

 sea, or Atlantic ocean, many countries were destroyed or changed; and the eastern 

 Atlantes thought the whole American continent had sunk, like the Atlantic and 

 many Antillan islands. After this event, the history is of necessity, for awhile, 

 more exclusively American. But, he tells us, in the lapse of centuries, a casual 

 intercourse was restored between the two continents. The Caribs, who appear to 

 be of Cantabrian origin, came to South America. The great nation of Guarini, of 

 Daran derivation, had arrived earlier, and extended itself over Guiana, Brazil, and 

 Paraguay. When the Arcutans or Femurians of Ireland were expelled by a tribe 

 of the Gaels, they fled to Hayti, and became probably the Arohuac nation. Before 

 the Christian era the Phoenicians traded to America. The Numidians and the Celts 

 frequented Hayti 2000 years ago ; and the Etruscans attempted to settle colonies in 

 this country, but were prevented by the Carthaginians. Owing to numerous ship- 

 wrecks, and the warlike habits of the Caribs, Iztacans, and Oghuzians, this intercourse 

 gradually declined, till the knowledge of America became almost lost or clouded in 

 fables and legends. 



The annals of Kentucky, however, are by no means interrupted ; but continue 

 to flow through intricate revolutions, which the author is fortunately able to describe, 

 briefly, to be sure, but with great exactness, until the history is broken in upon 

 and obscured by the arrival of the present race of Caucasian interlopers. 



So perfect a revelation necessarily removes all mystery from the origin and pur- 

 pose of the ancient remains of the Mississippi valley. 



Mr. Rafinesque was a man of very considerable scholastic and scientific attain- • 

 ments. He was connected with Transylvania University as professor of Historical 

 and Natural Sciences, and subscribes himself a member of many learned societies 

 in Europe and America. He had been actively engaged in researches among the 

 antiquities of the West, and left, at his decease, a manuscript work on the subject, 

 illustrated with drawings, which proved very serviceable to Messrs. Squier and 



