12 MEXICAN HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY. 



" If the far-off past has not always been able to write its name, it has left its 

 mark," says Robert Gary Long, in his ingenious discourse on the ancient architecture 

 of America, delivered before the New York Historical Society, in 1849. 1 " Its stony 

 autographs loom out largely from the page of time. Egypt has piled hers in 

 Pyramids; India has quaintly carved hers in the Eocks of Ellora; Greece has 

 delicately shaped hers, in a form of ever living beauty, upon the Acropolis ; Rome 

 has rounded hers in magnificent proportions in the dome of the Pantheon; and 

 the Middle Ages have ' illuminated' their signature with those heaven-reaching 

 coruscations, the Gothic cathedrals." * * * * " In the monuments of the past 

 we have the human deposit of the ages — the truth of the historical past. Architec- 

 ture, in this view, is the geology of humanity. Ceasing its testimony at the present 

 surface of the globe, geology tells nothing of that subsequent history which com- 

 mences with the existence of men. Here, architecture resumes the thread of the 

 narrative, and bears witness of that compound existence to which it owes its origin. 

 ***** That consecutiveness which is dimly descried in documents, 

 in architecture is apparent ; that human progress, in which all believe, but which 

 so few show forth distinctly, is beautifully narrated in the monumental series." 



In the absence of unquestionable historic and recorded evidence, I have always 

 considered architectural forms, disclosed in the remains of antiquity, as the most 

 valuable hints for detecting the relative stages of the human family in the process 

 of civilization. Craniology and osteologic science may show the relative capacity 

 of races for civilization, but they do not demonstrate the degree attained ; while 

 the Druidical stonehenge, the Indian mound, the Egyptian tomb and palace, the 

 Greek temple, and the Roman Coliseum, are types of the progressive intellectual 

 grades of their respective builders. 



It is true that, where there are intertribal or international communications 

 between people, the arts of the most advanced may be adopted by those who are 

 in the rear; but it is dangerous, and I think unscientific, to start with the theory 

 that resemblances, or even identities, in any of the arts, indicate either international 

 connection or imitation. The basis of all action is the mind, and we know that it 

 originates similar inventions, — according to individual capacity, — throughout the 

 most widely separated conditions of the human family. 



" Analogies of this kind," says Baron Humboldt, in his Voyage Pittoresque, 

 " prove very little in favor of the ancient intercommunication between people, for, 

 under all the zones, men have indulged in a rhythmic repetition of the same forms." 

 To understand the force of this and its sensible value, let us recur to the simple 

 and natural process in the law of inventive progress. A hunter or shepherd will 

 content himself by leaning the branches of trees against each other to shield him- 

 self from sun or rain in his temporary bivouac, and, hence the first form is that of 



the tent : / \ • If he is a wanderer, and inhabits, at times, the plains as well 

 as the forest, he will construct a permanent and portable covering of skins and poles, 



Long's Ancient Architecture of America, pp. 5 and 6. 



