" DID THE ROMANS COLONIZE AMERICA ? " 641 



* founded upon pre-existent models known in old civilizations. This art displays 

 *a mind and hand trained in the schools of science." 



How very foolish such expressions are can only be known to those who 

 Jiave had a chance to see such ruins. We know that the science and art of the 

 pre-historic men of America almost wholly consisted in the manufacture of bows, 

 arrows and spears, and implements of the rudest sort made of stone or bone. 

 We know that his building operations in the main went no farther than the con- 

 struction of rude mounds of earth, and here and there the erection of buildings 

 of the same material, whose crude and rugged forms about as nearly approach the 

 works of art and the buildings erected by men schooled in science, as does the 

 humble ant-hill resemble a Greek or Roman temple. 



It appears from all that I personally know of the American Indians, and 

 have gathered from reliable sources, that they are races of men, who from the 

 very beginning of their existence, as men, however distant that may be, have 

 made but little progress in refining their pursuits, their habits and manners, or 

 their arts and manufactures. In short, it is but little more than their form and 

 language which distinguishes them from the brutes with which they associate. 

 Nor does it seem that within them are the elements of progress, nor do they 

 appear to have the power to lift themselves out of the brutish life which they 

 have led for ages. For pre-historic implements and arms which we have been 

 able to find, show by a comparison with the arms and implements in the hands 

 of the Indians at the time of the discovery by Columbus, that in whatever time 

 which may have elapsed between the advent of the Indian Adam and Eve, and 

 the time of Columbus, be it much or little, the red man made but little improve- 

 ment in anything whatever. 



But to return to Mr. Moore. He says on page 237, Vol. VIII, of the Re- 

 view: " We consider first the most universal of the testimonies reflecting the 

 ' Indian's origin. We say universal, for whithersoever the man wandered over 

 / the continent, he left behind him as a testimonial the shreds of his language. 

 ^ * * * . The most common, and at the same time the most 



* ancient of the Indian appellations have been preserved. They are the river 

 'names of the continent." Mr. Moore here assumes that each different tribe of 

 Indians, in whatever its language may differ from the other Indian languages in 

 its vicinity, uses in common with all other tribes the same names for the rivers of 

 this country. How very far from the truth this is. For, as is well known, when 

 a dominant tribe destroys or drives out a weaker one, the dominant tribe gives 

 its own names to the streams, hills, vales, and other landmarks conquered from 

 the enemy, taking pains in fact to destroy all that the weaker one had set-up 

 or named. You might just as well expect a Chinaman to intuitively name the 

 Rhone River in German terms on a visit to it, as to expect an Indian to adopt a 

 name in his region coined by some one else. He never does it. Again, on the 

 same page he says : " The Indian names of our rivers belong to a period when 

 ' one common language was known, when one dominant race ruled throughout 

 ' the entire length and breadth of America." 



