72 ' JOURNAL AND PROCEEDlNfiS 



result of such a comparison," he says, " startles the mind with their 

 probable antiquity." Taking for comparison the " Cloaca Maxima,'' 

 of Rome, constructed nearly twenty-five hundred years ago to drain 

 the waters of the Forum into the Tiber, he finds it without a stone 

 displaced, performing to the present day its destined service. 

 " What then," he asks, " must be the age of these ruins of Chichen 

 Itza ? Evidently Chichen Itza was an anitquity when the foundation 

 of the Parthenon at Athens, or the Cloaca Maxima at Rome were 

 being laid." "Only in the ruins of Baalbeck, Antioch, of Carthage," 

 or, he adds, " may we not say of Thebes, of Tadmor, of Memphis^ 

 do we find an equal ruin and desolation." 



Thus we have demonstrated to us that these remains are of vast 

 antiquity ; they have come to us through the long void of ages as 

 living testimonials to a buried past, and we cannot but accept the 

 conclusion that their builders — a people capable of such majestic 

 creations, adorned with painting and sculpture, and who were 

 workers in glass and metallurgy — must have been a people of long 

 and refined civilization, dating from hundreds, or maybe thousands 

 of years B. C. ; otherwise such creations could never have been 

 conceived or executed. Further, that these remains were the work 

 of a kindred race, is evident in their general resemblance, their 

 apparent purpose, age, and general style of architecture. And the 

 origin of all these bygone nations, tradition unites in saying, was in 

 the land of the far off East, beyond the sea. 



In tracing out the identity of any nation, there are two channels 

 outside of language or public record, by which it may be possible to 

 trace back to the fountain-head the origin of that nation. These 

 two channels are Architecture and Customs : the former including 

 all details of sculpture and ornamentation, particularly as applied to 

 temples of worship, places of sacred or public resort, and also public 

 monuments and works ; the latter, the rites of worship, modes of 

 living, modes of justice, public ceremonies, public laws, and all the 

 other vital principles that form the sub-strata of a nation's strength 

 and greatness. 



When a colony of people branches off from the parent stock, 

 and become citizens of another country, they will carry with them 

 the peculiar customs, as well as language of the fatherland. In 

 the course of time, as these people increase and multiply, the 



