124 DANIEL WILSON ON 
established ; nor can any reason be shown why the human intellect might not be started 
on the same course in Central America, as in Mesopotamia or the valley of the Nile. If we 
assume the primary settlement of Central America by expeditions systematically carried 
on under the auspices of some ancient maritime power of the Mediterranean, or of an early 
seat of Iberian or Libyan civilisation, then they would, undoubtedly, transplant the arts 
of their old home to the New World. But, on the more probable supposition of wanderers, 
either by the Atlantic or the Pacific, being landed on its shores, and becoming the unde- 
signed settlers of the continent, it is otherwise; and the probabilities are still further dim- 
inished, if we conceive of ocean wanderers, from island to island of the Pacific, at length 
reaching the shores of the remote continent after intervening generations had lost the 
traditions of their Asiatic fatherland. The condition of metallurgy as practised by the 
Mexicans and Peruvians exhibited none of the matured phases of an inheritance from remote 
generations, but partook rather of the tentative characteristics of immature native art. 
We are prone to overestimate the facilities by which the arts of civilisation may be 
transplanted to remote regions. It is not greatly more difficult to conceive of the redis- 
covery of some of the essential elements of human progress than to believe in the trans- 
ference of them from the eastern to the western hemisphere by wanderers from either 
Europe or Asia. Take the average type of emigrants, such as are annually’ landed by 
thousands at New York. They come from the most civilised countries of Europe. Yet, 
how few among them all could be relied upon for any such intelligent comprehension 
of metallurgy, if left entirly to their own resources, as to be found able to turn the 
mineral wealth of their new home to practical account; or for astronomical science, such 
as would enable them to construct a calendar, and start afresh a systematic chronology. 
As to letters, the picture-writing of the Aztecs was the same in principle as the rude art of 
the northern Indians; and I cannot conceive of any reason for rejecting the assumption of 
its native origin as an intellectual triumph achieved by the labours of many generations. 
Every step is still traceable, from the rude picturings on the Indian’s grave-post or rock- 
inscription, to the systematic ideographs of Palenque or Copan. Hieroglyphics, as the 
natural outgrowth of pictorial representation, must always have a general family likeness; 
but all attempts to connect the civilisation of Central and Southern Amarica with that of 
Egypt fail, so soon as a comparison is instituted between the Egyptian calendar and any 
of the native American systems of recording dates and computing time. The vague year 
of 365 days, and the corrected solar year, with the great Sothic Cycle of 1460 years, so inti- 
mately interwoven with the religious system and historical chronology of the Egyptians, 
abundantly prove the correction of the Egyptian calender by accumulated experience, at a 
date long anterior to the resort of the Greek astronomer, Thales, to Egypt. At the close of 
the fifteenth century, the Aztecs had learned to correct their calendar to solar time ; but their 
cycle was one of only fifty-two years. The Peruvians also had their recurrent religious 
festivals, connected with the adjustment of their sacred calendar to solar time; but the 
geographical position of Peru, with Quito, its holy city, lying immediately under the 
equator, greatly simplified the process by which they regulated their religious festivals 
by the solstices and equinoxes. The facilities which their equatorial position afforded for 
determining the few indispensable periods in their calendar were, indeed, a doubtful 
advantage, for they removed all stimulus to progress. The Mexican calendar is the most 
remarkable evidence of the civilisation attained by that people. Humboldt unhesitatingly 
