112 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



interest, which he took home to London and exhibited in a room fitted up for the 

 purpose'. Among other curiosities, he obtained a very long pictorial record, 

 declared by the native Mexicans to be a chart, delineating the travels of the Aztec 

 race through the continent to their resting-place in the valley of Anahuac. This 

 was said to have been among the collections of Boturini, and to have upon it 

 numerical figures and a table of references in his handwriting. 



Mr. Bullock afterwards left London and established his residence in Cincinnati, 

 Ohio, bringing with him two copies of the chart, fac similes of the original. From 

 one of them the exact transcript engraved for Mr. Delafield was taken, and that 

 gentleman expressed his "full and unhesitating faith in the genuineness and 

 authenticity" of the document. This chart, or pictorial record, is seven and a half 

 inches wide, and unfolds to the length of eighteen feet. It begins with a repre- 

 sentation of an island on which are two human figures, an altar or tumulus (appa- 

 rently), and the Mexican symbol for house six times repeated. From the island a 

 figure is rowing a boat to what appears to be intended for the main land; and a 

 series of human figures — sometimes marching, and sometimes at rest — with sym- 

 bols of various kinds, and rude drawings of natural objects, continues through the 

 length of the chart. These are interpreted as exhibiting a passage across a strait 

 corresponding to Behring's Strait, and a gradual progress southward, of many years' 

 duration, often interrupted for considerable periods, and diversified by events of a 

 varied nature; all these circumstances being indicated, either by the evident sig- 

 nificance of the drawings or by Mexican symbols and characters, whose meaning 

 is well established. It is not claimed that any of the signs point to a residence, or 

 even a transit east of the Mississippi ; but coincidences of climate, soil, and natural 

 productions, have been detected, or imagined, with a route nearer the Pacific. 1 



In the text of Mr. Delafield's book, the notice of this document is preceded by 

 his inquiry into the origin of American antiquities. Assuming that, on the dis- 

 covery of the country, there were two distinct races inhabiting the continent — one 

 civilized, comprehending the Mexicans and Peruvians, the other savage and 

 nomadic, embracing all the families of the North American Indians; and that the 

 civilized race went from the north, where they constructed the remains yet exist- 

 ing he proposed to trace these races respectively to the source from whence they 



sprang. He divided the analogical evidence on which he rested his argument into 

 seven classes, viz: I. Philological. II. Anatomical. III. Mythological. IV. 



HlEROGLTPHIC. V. ASTRONOMICAL. VI. ARCHITECTURAL. VII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



These branches of inquiry, he fancied, unite in pointing to Egypt and Hindostan 

 as the homes of the ancestors of the Mexicans, while they indicate the Mongolian 

 origin of the barbarous tribes. Then, resorting to the national genealogies of Scrip- 

 ture and history, he followed the descent of the American aborigines from Chus or 

 Chush, also called Cuth, the son of Ham, whose posterity, the Cuthians or Cuthites, 

 were always a disorderly and wandering race ; and some of whom, in process of 

 time, were termed 2,xvdai, or Scythians, having the Greek 2 prefixed to their name. 



1 For a full exposition of Boturini's Chart, by Mr. Gallatin, see Trans, of Am. Etbnol. Soc, I, p. 

 120, cl seq. 



