102 NAT! RAL BISTORT OS 



and external characters, or the varying degrees of development 

 of the intellectual faculties amount to a body of facts sufficient 

 to come to a decision, are of the utmost importance. The 

 laws prescribed, when similar questions are applied to the 

 brute creation, we contend, should be equally imperative when 

 relating to man in his zoological aspect ; and if no better argu- 

 ment or more decisive fact can be adduced, than that axiom 

 which declares that "fertile offspring constitutes the proof of 

 identity of species," we may be permitted t>> reply, that as this 

 maxim does not repose upon unexceptionable facts, it dew 

 to be held solely in the light of a criterion, more convenient in 

 systematic classification than absolutely correct. So, again, in 

 forming an estimate of the antiquity of organic remains, in 

 juxtaposition with those of man, where the chemical and other 

 conditions of the bones are the same as those of the mammalia 

 they are found to accompany, they must be judged upon the 

 same principles. 



With the foregoing elements in view, we desire to i 

 upon the chain of our researches, reminding the young reader 

 that no transient facts, solitary examples, or even allusions to 

 names of tribes, legendary or religious, are disposed of, without 

 entering into further details; but, from the necessity of remain- 

 ing within the restrictions imposed upon us by the want of 

 space, although many may be far from needing a known his- 

 tory, or they occur merely as fictions, taken from physical 

 realities, such as the mythologist, versed in the philosophy of 

 early history, will immediately recognize, notwithstanding that 

 they come upon him under the combinations of a fresh aspect. 

 But where traces occur of great nations, and especially of those 

 that have had, or still continue to have, a marked influence on 

 human destinies, a certain extent of detail, we trust, will be 

 justifiable. 



On questions of antiquity, involving periods of time, and on 

 others which, relate to the measurements of distance between 

 geographical points, it may be well to bear in mind that the 



