AN THR OPOL OGY. 363 



SOME HITHERTO UNNOTICED AFFINITIES BETWEEN ANCIENT 

 CUSTOMS IN AMERICA AND OTHER CONTINENTS. 



DR. J. W. PHENE, F.S.A , F.R.G.S., F.G.S., OF LONDON. 



The author of this paper explained that as one of the great problems to be 

 worked out, or which at least it is desired should be worked out, by all who have 

 given any attention to the subject, is that of the races and civilizations which once 

 flourished at the southern end of the northern continent of America, and which 

 had evident connections with the^ore northern parts of what are now the United 

 States, through those great ducts, the Mississippi and other vast river valleys, tend- 

 ing to the latter direction, he had devoted many years to the investigation of the 

 subject. He had read papers upon certain particulars of this subject in the capi- 

 tals of those countries in which he had found corresponding remains, so far as 

 those particulars applied respectively to such countries. Great difficulty, he said, 

 existed through absence of literary records, possibly lost in the destruction of 

 such evidence by the conquerors of Mexico, the only city and country in which 

 civilization with rude but graphic literature and illustration existed on the face of 

 this vast continent. And the difficulty was increased from the fact that, rude as 

 it was, civilization had then reached a point at which Hterature became essential, 

 and though now, to a great extent, lost had then actually taken root. Arrested 

 by such barriers, any information which bears on the subject was important, the 

 more so if, as in the present case, such information had been carefully collected 

 by the devotion of years of personal investigation and travel to its acquirement. 

 The customs which are shown to have existed in the great river valleys of 

 America, though read with difficulty by the light of the strange monuments still 

 existing there, seemed to the author to have had parallel existences on the other 

 continents. In evidence of this he gave illustrations, by drawings and diagrams, 

 of many earthworks and stone constructions which had been examined by him in 

 company with a large number of scientific men, and which agreed in the method 

 of executing the earthworks, of arranging the plans and designs, and in the evi- 

 dently similar purposes for which they were designed, and to which they had 

 been devoted. It was his intention to avoid all theories whether his own or 

 others, upon the origin of the monuments, the nationalities of their constructors, 

 or their special purposes, though the latter in most cases were apparent. Nor 

 should he in this paper give any account of the American earthworks, except 

 where comparisons with others became necessary, as the whole subject of the 

 American works had been so ably brought before the public by such eminent 

 men as the late Mr. Squire and Messrs. Lapham and Davis in the Smithsonian 

 Contributions to Knowledge and other works published under authority at Wash- 

 ington. 



