Aboriginal Race of America. 171 
again the differences of physical organization should set this 
question at rest for ever ; but independently of these, can we 
suppose that a people so tenacious as the Jews of their litera- 
ture, language, and religion, would not have preserved a soli- 
tary, unequivocal memorial of either among the multitudinous 
tribes of this continent, if any direct affiliation had ever ex- 
isted between them? In short, we coincide in opinion with 
a facetious author, who sums up all the evidence of the case 
with the conclusion, that “the Jewish theory cannot be true, 
for the simple reason that it is impossible.”’ 
We feel assured that the same objection bears not less 
strongly on every other hypothesis which deduces any por- 
tion of the American nations from a Caucasian source. In 
order to solve the problem of the origin of the monuments of 
America, independently of any agency of the aboriginal race, 
an opinion has been advanced that they are the work of a 
branch of the great Cyclopean family of the old world, known 
by the various designations of the Shepherd Kings of Egypt, 
the Anakim of Syria, the Oscans of Etruria, and the Pelas- 
gians of Greece. These wandering masons, as they are also 
called, are supposed to have passed from Asia into America at 
a very early epoch of history, and to have built those more 
ancient monuments which are attributed to the Toltecan 
nation. This view, supported as it is by some striking re- 
- semblances, and especially in architectural decoration, leaves 
various important difficulties entirely unexplained ; it neces- 
sarily pre-supposes a great influx of foreigners to account for 
such numerous and gigantic remains of human ingenuity and 
effort, at the same time that no trace of this exotic family 
can be detected in the existing Indian population. They 
and their arts are equally eradicated ; and we can, at most, 
only conceive of the presence of these migratory strangers in 
small and isolated groups, which might have modified the 
arts of an antecedent civilization, while they themselves were 
too few in number to transmit their lineaments to any abori- 
ginal community. 
Closely allied to this theory, is that of our ingenious country- 
man, Mr Delafield, who derives the demi-civilized nations 
