2'tf CLINTON'S 



been lately printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society ; and we 

 iiave many and considerable collections of words in different Indian Ian- 

 gh.'ges. Our antiquities are of two kinds, such as relate to the aborigi- 

 nal, an.! colonial states. We have no indian monuments or curiosities that 

 can be compared with the forts on the Ohio, or with the temples of the 

 Aztecs. There are some remains of Indian pottery,(12) of weapons, and of 

 rude paintings. Mounds of earth, like the tumuli in Scandinavia, Russia 

 and Tartary, the barrows in England, and the cairns in Scotland and 

 Ireland, may still be seen; and also the outlines of extensive fortifica- 

 tions. But the variegated condition of the white man here exhibits 

 human nature in all its shapes : we behold him in every stage of society 

 from the semi-savage hunter, to a polished citizen; and we perceive every 

 stage of cultivation from the first tree that was cut to the elegant habi- 

 tation. " In North America," says a distinguished writer, " a traveller 

 who sets out from a great town, where the social state has attained to 

 perfection, traverses successively all degrees of civilization and industry, 

 ivliich keep diminishing till he arrives in a few days at the rude and un- 

 seemly hut formed of the trunks of trees newly cut down. Such a jour- 

 ney is a sort of practical analysis of the origin of nations and states. 



We set out from the most complicated union to arrive at the most sim- 

 ple elements. We travel in retrogression the history of the progress of 

 the human mind, and we find in space what is due on'y to the succession 

 of time."* 



Zoology has been greatly neglected. Linnaeus has distributed animals 

 into six classes ; and has arranged the mammalia, consisting of viviparous 

 animals which suckle their offspring, into seven orders ; according to 

 the position and peculiarity of their teeth. (13) This arrangement, which 

 places man in the same order with apes, monkeys and bats, has been re- 

 jected by eminent zoologists. Some have distinguished animals by the 

 hoofs and toes, and others by the structure of the heart. The want of a 

 regular and established system has created confusion in this science, and 

 has added to the difficulties of those europeans who have attempted to 

 describe our animals. There has not been written in this country, any 

 professed work on its quadrupeds ; and those sketches which have been 

 published are greatly deficient, especially in omitting to notice at large 

 the habitudes and manners of animals; the most interesting part of natu- 

 ral history. A writer devoting himself to the elucidation of our quadru- 

 peds alone, and confining his view to this state, would have subjects of 

 vast interest and moment. He would undoubtedly place at the head of 

 bis list, the mammoth, or elephas arnericanus ; skeletons of which have 

 been discovered in Orange and Ulster counties and one has been put up 

 in Peale's Museum. He would elicit all the information that could be ob- 

 tained ti-otn this source : be would examine the different hypotheses 

 have been suggested in relation to this animal, and he >vonld no? 7 



r TalleyrafiJ on Colonization 



