14 NATURAL HISTORY 



rude implements ; even the broken pottery is a treas- 

 ure : and all this to pierce the curtain of mystery 

 that hangs over their origin and history to catch a 

 glimpse, if possible, of some broken shaft in that 

 long gallery of history, which fell so long before 

 Columbus lived, that not a single arch has been 

 borne to us on the bosom of Indian tradition to aid 

 us in its reconstruction. 



This is natural to man. "Whatever gives evidence 

 of thought, he wishes to investigate. The field of 

 thought is the home of a thinking being, the home 

 of man ; and whatever manifests thought, without, 

 evil associations, is never by him to be regarded as 

 useless. He never can thus regard it, for the very 

 law of his intellectual being forbids it. He may 

 not have so far analyzed his intellectual forces as to 

 know why he is impelled to this or that investiga- 

 tion. He may not be able to give a satisfactory 

 answer to the one who demands the use. But, he 

 knows there is a use, as he knows that food strength- 

 ens his body, although he may be in happy igno- 

 rance of such an organ as a stomach, and have no 

 notion of the peculiar office of carbon and nitrogen 



