244 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



now exterminated Charruans* of the Guarani, or like 

 the latter, found in a mixed state on the shores of 

 California. This view gives sufficient time for the 

 local intermixture of the races with the flat-headed 

 aboriginal, whose peaceful phlegmatic habits readily 

 yielded to the turbulent activity of male adventurers, 

 and accounts for the various other phenomena which 

 attend the question under consideration. 



In the successive struggles of nations, which must 

 have ensued, for hunting grounds or for dominion, the 

 more advanced have evidently been obliged to yield to 

 those from the north. Whether both originally came 

 from the same quarter, or one had previously arrived 

 by a marine route, the result was the same. The proofs 

 are seen in the ruins of vast castral cities, and human 

 tumuli, still extant in the United States ; in the Maen 

 Stones and Cromlehs of the more eastern regions ; f in 

 the pyramids and temples possessed by the successive 

 nations of Mexico ; and, if the singularly squared cone 

 in the middle of a lake of northern California, be wholly 

 or in part the work of Man, it may be a memorial of 

 departure, or a mark of direction for other tribes, per- 

 haps similar to the semi-artificial pile of Chehel Suton 

 that antique landmark of migration, and directing guide 

 of caravans, situated on the edge of the western Gobi 

 Desert, almost midway between Pekin and Constan- 



* These may be the same Sir Walter Raleigh mentions 

 as having lank hair in Guiana, where he observed them. 



+ At North Salem, New York ; at Winipignan river, on 

 the Ohio, &c. 



