276 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



It is likely that others, particularly those evincing greater skill 

 were constructed during the sway of the second, and that the 

 Inca period only adapted them to the system of solar Budhism, 

 which it can scarcely be denied formed the basis of their insti- 

 tutions. Of the Cromlechs of America appearing to be identi- 

 cal with the Celtic, known all over Europe and Asia, we wish 

 not to say more than that they are, to a certain extent, evi- 

 dence of the early wandering of some Gomerian tribes to the 

 New World ; and of the Northmen it is now proved that they 

 reached the east coast by a western course from Iceland, and 

 wandered much further to the south than was suspected in 

 earlier times. Whether any of these survived and amalga- 

 mated with the local races, is a question not likely ever to be 

 settled. 



The decay, amounting to prospective extinction, observed to 

 be the lot of the American races, is, moreover, a further proof 

 that they are not a typical people, but that they are stems 

 occupying debatable ground, which we have before shown are 

 alone liable to annihilation, or to entire absorption. Yet, in 

 some parts of the tropical latitudes, in Yucatan for instance, so 

 great an amalgamation of the white with indigenous tribes and 

 with Negro imported slaves, has taken place, that this mixed 

 population, becoming sensible of numerical superiority, as well 

 as of the more intense energy they possess in those climates, 

 are now asserting their power ; and ultimately this hybrid race 

 may prove a more serious opponent to the white man's insa- 

 tiable cupidity than the descendants of European conquerors 

 have yet had to encounter. 



We have not space to enter into the geographical details of 

 the distribution of the indigenous tribes, further than has been 

 already done, nor to advert more particularly to their dialects ; 

 for hordes, without letters or great national expansion, and 

 which are constantly subdividing, exterminating by mutual 

 slaughter, or perishing from constitutional liability to disease, 

 are therefore by no means able to form durable communities 



