CHAPTER III. 



CONCLUSION. 



In the preceding pages we have endeavored to select and condense, from a mass 

 of miscellaneous notes, such materials as would illustrate the views entertained at 

 different periods, and by various writers, upon subjects relating to the archseolog}' 

 of the United States. 



This has been done under whatever disadvantages are incident to the circum- 

 stance of having portions of the text printed before other portions were written. 

 Had opportunity and leisure been afforded for revision of the entire paper, changes 

 and additions might have been made that would have been likely to improve the 

 consistency as well as the completeness of the narrative. 



After a consideration of statements and speculations that have failed to present 

 a harmonious result, the mind naturally craves the satisfaction of being able to 

 distinguish acknowledged verities from data that are problematical, if it is only for 

 the sake of some solid basis on which to build new theories, or some fixed point 

 from which future investigations may take their departure. The reader will 

 doubtless expect to be assisted in an effort to separate matters of fact from infer- 

 ences and hypotheses, by a recapitulation of the principal points that have been 

 with reasonable certainty established. 



We shall endeavor, while glancing rapidly along the course of inquiry, to ascer- 

 tain in what direction, and to what extent, the way is tolerably clear and the path 

 tolerably firm. 



The comparative geological antiquity of the two hemispheres is accounted by 

 some an element of weight in estimating the probabilities of an indigenous popula- 

 tion on this continent. It is a point, however, that cannot be determined in the 

 present stage of geological observations. If we admit that portions of the western 

 continent exhibit appearances of an earlier emergence than is known to be indi- 

 cated elsewhere, it might still be true that the mass of the eastern hemisphere was 

 sooner developed, and sooner prepared for the habitation of man. But until it is 

 generally accepted as a fact by scientific men that America really has claims to 

 priority of age, the assertion is, at any rate, entitled to no more than the rank of an 

 hypothesis. 1 



The discovery of human skeletons in a fossilized state, might, under the first 



1 " There exists no reason for assuming that one side of our planet is older or more recent than the 

 other." Humboldt, "Views of Nature," p. IOC. 



