12 | On the Ethnography and Archeology 
are formed of a better material, generally of hewn stone, and 
often elaborately ornamented with sculpture. But the absence of 
all decoration in the modern buildings, is no proof that they have 
not been erected by people of the same race with those who have 
left such profusely ornamented. monuments in other parts of 
Mexico ; for the ruins of Pueblo Bonito, in the direction of Na- 
vajo, and those of the celebrated Casas Grandes on the western 
Colorado, which were regarded by Clavigero as among the oldest 
Toltecan remains in Mexico, are destitute of sculpture or other 
decoration. In fact, these last named ruins appear to date with 
the primitive wanderings of the cultivated tribes, before they 
established their seats in ‘Whonter and Se, and erected 
more finished i could only result from the 
combined efforts of populous communities, acting under the favor- 
able influence of peace and prosperity. very race has had its 
center or centers of comparative civilization. The American 
aborigines had theirs in Peru, Bogota and Mexico. The people, 
the institutions and the architecture were essentially the same in 
each, though modified by local wants and conventional usages. 
Humboldt was forcibly impressed by this archeological identity, 
for he himself had traced it, with occasional imterruptions, over 
an extent of a thousand ‘aaeeiins and we now find that it 
ally merges itself into the ruder dwellings of the more einai 
tribes ; showing, as I have often remarked, that there is, in every 
seiepeiily a gradual ethnographic ‘transition from these into the 
temple-builders of every American epoch.* 
I shall close this communication by a notice of certain dliseoidal 
stones occasionally found in the mounds of the United States. 
Of these relics I possess sixteen, of which all but two were found 
by my friend Dr. Wm. Pilsen during his long residence in 
Camden, South Carolina. These disks were accompanied, as 
usual, by earthern vessels, pipes of baked clay, arrow-heads and. 
other articles, respecting which Dr. Blanding has given me the 
following locality :—“ All the Indian relics, save three or four, 
: which Lhave sent you, were collected on or near the banks of 
the Wateree:river, Kershaw district, South Carolina; the greater 
part ao the pacnds or near the foot of pein All the mounds 
my Inquiry into. the Distinetive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of 
ben: 2a edit., Philad, 1 1844. 
a ieee > a 
