VI. 



KU INS. 



To all whose minds have received an ordinary 

 amount of cultivation, there are few objects more inter- 

 esting than the remains of antiquity, — whether, like 

 those of Greece and Rome, they call up the history 

 of the noblest works of art and deeds of renown, or 

 like those of Egypt, they carry back the mind to the 

 age of primeval superstition, or like the ruins of the 

 earth itself, they read the story of the antediluvian 

 periods, before the present races of animals were 

 created. In our own country where these relics of 

 ancient times, excepting those of a geological descrip- 

 tion, are almost unknown, the people in general can 

 hardly sympathize with that love of ruins, which is 

 almost a passion with some of the inhabitants of the 

 Old World. We have no ruined castles to remind us 

 of ancient baronial splendor, and of the perils and hero- 

 ism of the feudal ages ; no remains of gorgeous temples 

 or triumphal arches, to record the deeds of a past gen- 

 eration. The ancient history of this continent lives 

 chiefly in tradition ; and the traveller, who happens to 

 discover one of the few relics of ancient American 

 architecture, seeks in vain for any record that will 

 explain its character or design. 



