ILLUSTRATIONS, 57 



c4 author. In this discourse he says, " Nor is the satisfactory decision of the 

 question relative to the origin of the americans beyond the reach of science. 

 It is, indeed, a question which can only be fully decided by much labour and 

 patience in research, aided by that candour wluch should be inseparable from 

 the character of a genuine philosopher. For the intestigation of this subject, we 

 should lose no time in collecting vocabularies of the languages of the Indians ; 

 as well those with whom we have been long acquainted, as those who have 

 recently become known to us, through the medium of the travels, of mr. Mac- 

 kenzie, captains Lewis, Clark, Freeman, and others. In this inquiry, too, it 

 will be highly important to have an eye to the religious institutions and the my- 

 thology of the auaericans. I have elsewhere stated that large fragments of 

 the asiatic mythology are preserved in a considerable degree of purity, in the 

 most distant or opposite regions of America, on the shores of Lakes Superior 

 and Ontario, and on the confines of the Plata and Maragnon." 



In stating that there are thirty -five languages in Mexico I have followed 

 ; Hamboldt says there are but twenty. HumboldPs fm Spain, vol.2. 



OTE 12. 



N^Eua, in his celebrated Systema Naturae, has divided animals 



1. Mammalia. 



2. Birds. 



3. Amphibia. 



4. Fishes. 



5. Insects. 



6. Worms. 



9e distributes the class mammalia into seven err 

 1. Primates. 

 *J. Bruta. 



3. Ferae. 



4. -Glireg. 



5. Pecora. 

 U. Belluae. 

 1. Cete, 



And after describing the first order, primates, as having cutting foreteetlu 

 four parallel upper teeth and two pectoral teats, hs div/dw it into 



