3$2 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



worthy of the Empire of the World, in that you 

 opened to every one of your fubjedts the career of 

 virtuous exertion, and culled the moft common 

 plants of the field to ferve as the badge of im- 

 mortal glory, that a crown for the head of virtue 

 might be found on every fpot of the Globe. 



From fimilar attractions it was, that, from ifland 

 to ifland, the Nations of Afia made their way to 

 the New World, where they landed on the fhores 

 of Peru. Thither they carried the name of chil- 

 dren of that Sun whom they were purfuing. This 

 brilliant chimera emboldened them to attempt the 

 paffage to America. It was not diffipated till 

 they reached the mores of the Atlantic Ocean : 

 but it diffufed itfelf over the whole Continent, 

 where moft of the Chiefs of the Nations flill af- 

 fume the title of Children of the Sun *. 



Mankind 



* I do not mean to affirm, however, that America was peo- 

 pled only from the iflands of the South-Sea. I believe that a 

 paflage was opened into it, likewife, by the North of Afia and of 

 Europe. Nature always prefents to Mankind different means 

 for the attainment of the fame end. But the principal popula- 

 tion of the New World came from the iflands of the South-Sea. 

 This I am able to prove by a multitude of monuments flill ex- 

 isting, and to the moft remarkable of which I fhall confine my- 

 felf. It is demonftrated, then, by the worfhip of the Sun, efta- 

 blifhed in India, in the iflands of the South-Sea, and in Peru, as 

 well as by the title of Suns, or Children of the Sun, aflumed by 



many 



