106 Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 



of the Chaldees" were doubtless in no small degree the transcript 

 of antediluvian science and of antediluvian refinement ; and we 

 may rest assured that the earliest cf the postdiluvian nations 

 would endeavour to remodel society agreeably to the fashion of 

 the world that had then passed so recently away. If, therefore, 

 we are utterly confounded in contemplating those stupendous 

 monuments of Egyptian magnificence which have hitherto defied 

 the ravages of time, and which seem to look scornfully down on 

 the straw-built and ephemeral cottages of modern men, it is 

 because these vast and everlasting erections were the ambitious 

 offspring, as they evidently still retain the impression, of an 

 intellect whose measure of space and of time was altogether 

 different from our own. In short, the colossal statues, the im- 

 mense temples, and the vast pyramids of Egypt were undoubtedly 

 formed on the antediluvian model — the model of a world in which 

 the pride and wickedness of man were enormous, and in which 

 his lifetime was a thousand years. And wherever we find monu- 

 ments of a similar character, we may rest assured that they were 

 the work of a people whose civilisation was derived immediately 

 from the same primitive source. 



The existence, therefore, of remains of ancient buildings in 

 the South Sea Islands and in both Americas, of a style and 

 character analagous to those of ancient Egypt, affords a presump- 

 tion that the people by whom these buildings were erected had 

 derived their knowledge of the arts and sciences from those 

 primitive times in which the impression of antediluvian civilisa- 

 tion still remained visible on the intellect of man. 



The pyramids of Egypt have been so famous in all past ages, 

 and the durable materials of which they had been constructed 

 have so long resisted the ravages of time, that we are apt to 

 forget that Egypt is not the only country in which such stu- 

 pendous and apparently useless structures have been reared. 

 The ancient Etrurians, the primitive and highly civilized people 

 of Italy, whose elegantly-formed vases were occasionally dug up 

 in the neighbourhood of Rome in the age of Augustus, and were 

 then esteemed as precious relics of antiquity, as a Grecian statue 

 in the present age, had evidently imbibed their civilisation at the 

 same fountain as the ancient Egyptians ; for the characteristics 

 of their architecture were also pyramidal and colossal, " At a 

 very early period," says an eminent Italian writer, " there existed 

 in Etruria a centre of civilisation contemporaneous with that of 

 the East and of ^gypt."t And the celebrated historian and 

 antiquarian, Niebuhr, observes, when speaking of the works of 

 the Etruscans, " "When compared with those of the Etruscan 

 cities, the buildings of Imperial Borne make but an inconsiderable 



t Storia degli antichi Popoli Italiani, di Giuseppe Micali Fieruze, 1832. 



