OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 71 



compared with this gigantic work of Anahuac, being but twenty-five 

 hundred feet square, which is one hundred and fifty rods, or nearly 

 so, while the pyramid we are speaking of, partly natural, partly 

 artificial, is at its base twelve thousand and sixty-six feet ; — this* 

 thrown into rods, gives seven hundred and fifty-four, and into miles 

 is two and three-eights, or nearly so, which is five times greater than 

 that of Babel." 



The same author says, in referring to the magnitude of the 

 tumuli and pyramids found along the Mediterranean : " But what- 

 ever power, wealth and genius these may exhibit — where the 

 Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Persians and the Greeks have 

 displayed the monuments of this most ancient sort of antiquity — all, 

 all is realized in North and South America, and doubtless under the 

 same superstitions and eras of time." 



Herodotus tells us that a hundred thousand men, relieved every 

 three months, were employed in building the pyramids of Cheops in 

 Egypt. Ten years were spent in preparing the road whereon the 

 stones and material were to be transported, and twenty more in 

 erecting the edifice. Yet all this expenditure of time, of human 

 life and labor, was primarily for the glorification of a single prince in 

 his attempt to prove to posterity that the gods alone were not 

 immortal, and secondly, as an imperishable burial place after death. 

 Just here occurs the thought that if such were the object and use of 

 pyramids in the Old World, why is it not equally probable that such 

 was the purpose of their erection in the New ? If so, the people by 

 whom they were erected must have been a people of bondsmen or 

 slaves, who were ground under the heel of a cruel despotism. 

 Indeed there are many reasons to believe — from their great pyra- 

 mids, and the peculiar formation of their cities — that the early 

 Americans lived under an ultra-despotic government, probably an 

 oligarchy, as such monuments could only have been raised to glorify 

 the few at the blood and expense of the many. 



Now comes the question as to the age of these ruins and monu- 

 ments. How are we to locate the date of their origin if we have no 

 key to their identity, save their time-effaced frescoes or moss-grown 

 columns and walls, many of the latter 15 feet or more in thickness, 

 and built with an art and strength that defy alike competition and 

 decay ? Norman answers the question by comparing them to the 

 ruins of other cities of which we have some knowledge. "The 



