14S' AMERICAN LITERARY FORGERIES. 



It is by CO means to be ascribed to the rude ignorance of our NevT 

 World settlers that such marvels reappear from time to time. It is, 

 on the contrary, because curiosity is already awakened, and education 

 is pervading the masses of the people, that a reason is asked for the 

 traces of extinct precursors alike of the European and the Red Indian, 

 on the prairies and in the great river-valleys of the west. Knowledge 

 is no longer confined to an exclusive cast. It is, indeed, very super- 

 ficial as yet ; and no doubt the shallow drafts do at times intoxicate 

 the brain. But it is widely difused. The wonder which belongs to 

 the stage of intelligent childhood, is accompanied by its large, uncriti- 

 cal faith. One among its curious phases, is the eagerness for grand 

 telescopes, and the discovery of new asteroids, comets, and other 

 celestial wonders. An astronomical observatory is one of the first 

 demands of a Western University, and funds are forthcoming with- 

 out di£5t!ulty for purchasing the requisite instruments ; not, indeed, to 

 be employed in such work as absorbs the patient labours of many an 

 observatory staff in the Old World : accumulating data, the full results 

 of which are to reward future generations; but to bring '^the wonders 

 of the heavens" within reach of the people. If the institution is 

 to prosper, it is bound to discover a comet or two per annum; anticipate 

 ' European observatories in the finding of the last asteroid ; or, at the least, 

 ' beat them all in the number of its solar spots, or November meteors. 

 For ordinary work its course is equally well defined. The nebulse, double 

 stars, mensurations dealing with the vague immensities of space, the sup- 

 posed central sun of the visible universe, and the like themes of fanci- 

 ful speculation, have a marvellous fascination for the popular mind, just 

 awaking to the charms of knowing, — and not yet conscious of how little 

 it knows. And so it is with this dream of antique races, and an extinct 

 civilization coeval with the Pharaohs, or Solomon, the Norse Thorfinn,. 

 the Welsh Madoc, or any other impersonation that seems like a tangible 

 reality of the past. 



But, after all, perhaps the most interesting aspect in which the view 

 this persistent tendency to counterfeit antiques, and palm off on the 

 American of the nineteenth century, Punic, Hebrew, Runic, and pri- 

 meval inscriptions of all sorts, is its manifest reproduction among the 

 young communities of the New World of that very same phase of 

 uncritical but zealous devotion to archaic research, which, a century 

 ago in the Mother Country, heralded the development of sound his- 

 torical and literary criticism, with all the valuable fruits which have 

 resulted from it. 



