1882. 123 Trans. N. Y. Ae. -Scz. 
number of the metals, gold and silver as ornaments, tin and copper 
combined to form bronze, which was‘used for arms and utensils. The 
structures which they erected were frequently composed of stones of 
large size, carefully dressed and laid in mortar, with the interiors plas- 
tered and painted. The external architectural decoration was fre- 
quently exceedingly elaborate and often very tasteful. Their religion 
was apparently sun-worship, and they frequently offered human sac- 
rifices. 
The monuments of Central America and Peru show such resem- 
blance to those of Mexico, that we cannot doubt that the people occu- 
pying all these countries must have been in close communication, and 
intimately related. The monuments of Central America have been 
described and illustrated by Stevens and Catherwood, Waldeck, Nor- 
man, etc., and their number, magnitude and ornamentation have excited 
great interest and admiration ; but it is believed that only a small por- 
tion of these monuments has yet been examined, and that in the dense 
forests of Honduras and Yucatan there yet remain a large number of 
towns and individual structures to reward theefforts of future explorers, 
In Peru,.as in Central America, the population in possession of these 
countries at.the time of the Spanish conquest was the same that had 
erected the monuments; but in both, as in Mexico, the iron hand of 
despotism and religious bigotry has nearly exterminated the population, 
and has destroyed their records, until their characteristics and history 
are scarcely better known than those of the Egyptians and Assyrians. 
The monuments of the Incas and their predecessors in South Amer- 
ica are briefly described by the Spanish historians, and have lately been 
studied by one of our number, Mr. E. G. SQUIER; and their magni- 
tude and interest may be inferred from his statements that the masonry 
of some of the Peruvian buildings excels anything he has elsewhere 
seen ; that the great Incarial roads extending from Quito to the fron- 
tiers of Chili were constructed with more labor and engineering skill 
than our Pacific Railroad, and that one fortress guarding a pass in the 
Andes contains more masonry than all of our coast defences from 
Maine to Florida. Although exhibiting {local differences, the similari- 
ties in the remains of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico, Central Amer- 
ica and Peru, are such that we are compelled to believe that their civ- 
ilization was generically the same, and that all these peoples were off- 
shoots from acommon stock. The monuments in Central America 
are often covered with inscriptions, while these are almost wanting in 
Mexico and Peru; but both these peoples used paper for writing, and 
were as little in the habit of making inscriptions on stone as we are, or 
as most civilized nations of Europe. Therefore the absence of inscrip- 
tions cannot be accepted as evidence of inferior enlightenment. 
