Francis Parkman 209 



work a peculiar interest, and will be sure to make 

 it grow in fame with the ages. Not only has he 

 left the truthful record of a vanished age so com- 

 plete and final that the work will never need to be 

 done again, but if any one should in future attempt 

 to do it again he cannot approach the task with 

 quite such equipment as Parkman. In an impor- 

 tant sense, the age of Pontiac is far more remote 

 from us than the age of Clovis or the age of Aga- 

 memnon. When barbaric society is overwhelmed 

 by advancing waves of civilization, its vanishing is 

 final ; the thread of tradition is cut off forever 

 with the shears of Fate. Where are Montezuma's 

 Aztecs? Their physical offspring still dwell on 

 the table-land of Mexico, and their ancient speech 

 is still heard in the streets, but that old society is 

 as extinct as the trilobites, and has to be painfully 

 studied in fossil fragments of custom and tradition. 

 So with the red men of the North : it is not true 

 that they are dying out physically, as many people 

 suppose, but their stage of society is fast disappear- 

 ing, and soon it will have vanished forever. Soon 

 their race will be swallowed up and forgotten, just 

 as we overlook and ignore to-day the existence 

 of five thousand Iroquois farmers in the state of 

 New York. 



Now the study of comparative ethnology has 



