STUDY XIII. 233 



employed *, and as becomes a city that is to lad 

 for eer. The ftreets, and the public fquares, 

 (hould be planted with great trees of various forts. 



Trees 



■* And fuch as Savages employ. Travellers are aftonilhed 

 when they furvey, in Peinj, the monuments of the ancient Tncas, 

 formed of vaft irregular ftones, perfedly fitted to each other. 

 Their conlVuflion prefents, at firft fight, two great difficulties: 

 How could the Indians have tranfported thofe huge maffes of 

 flone ; and how did they contrive to adapt them fo exaélly to each 

 other, notwithftanding their irregularity ? Our men of Science 

 have firfl: fuppofed a machinery proper for the tranfportation of 

 them ; as if there could be any machine more powerful than the 

 arms of a whole people exerting themfelves in concert. They 

 next tell us, that the Indians gave them thefe irregular forms by 

 dint of labour and induftry. This is a downright infult to the 

 common fenfe of Mankind. "Was it not much eafier to cut them 

 into a regular, than into an irregular, fliape ? I myfelf was em- 

 barrafled in attempting a folution of this problem. At length, 

 having read in the Memoirs of Don Ulloa, and likewife in fomc 

 other travellers, that there are found in many places of Peru, 

 beds of Hone along the furface of the ground, feparated by clefts 

 and crevices, I prefently comprehended the addrefs of the an- 

 cient Peruvians. All they had to do was to remove, piece and 

 piece, thofe horizontal layers of the quarries, and to place them 

 in a perpendicular dire(5lion, by moving the detached pieces clofc 

 to each other. Thus they had a wall ready made, which cofl 

 them nothing in the hewing. The natural genius is pofiefTed of 

 refources exceedingly fimple, but far fiiperior to thofe of our arts. 

 For example, the Savages of Canada had no cooking pots of me- 

 tal, previous to the arrival of the Europeans. They had, how- 

 ever, found means to fupply this want, by hollowing the trunk 

 of a tree with fire. But how did they contrive to fet it a boiling, 



fo 



