110 Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 



midal erections, of temples, of tumuli and of fortifications. I 

 nave already observed, in my last lecture, that the pyramidal and 

 colossal style of the architecture of the earlier postdiluvian 

 nations was in all likelihood a relic of the civilisation of the 

 antediluvian world. There can be no doubt, however, of its 

 universal prevalence in that early period of the history of our 

 race : and wherever we can trace its existence, we may rest 

 assured that the civilisation of which it is the sign was derived 

 from the ages immediately succeeding the deluge. Now there is 

 nothing more remarkable than the prevalence of this peculiar 

 type of civilisation, this pyramidal and colossal style of archi- 

 tecture, in the ruined cities of America. Humboldt, as I have 

 already shewn, compares those of Mexico with the pyramids of 

 Egypt ; and in all the recently-discovered ruins of Indo-American 

 cities in Guatimula and Yucatan — in Copan, in Quirigua, in 

 Palenque, and in Uxmal — pyramidal buildings are uniformly 

 found, sometimes in great numbers, together with monolith 

 statues, in some instances upwards of twenty feet high. " The 

 pyramid of Papantla," says Humboldt, " is built entirely with 

 hewn stones of an extraordinary size, and very beautifully and 

 regularly shaped ; three staircases lead to the top."* Stephens 

 also, in his " Incidents of Travel in Central America," thus 

 describes a ruin he had seen in the ancient Indo-American city 

 of Copan in Guatimala. " This temple is an oblong enclosure. 

 The front or river wall extends in a right line north and south 

 624 feet, and is from 60 to 90 feet in height. It is made of cut 

 stones, from three to six feet in length, and a foot and a half in 

 breath. * * * The other three sides consist of ranges of 

 steps and pyramidal structures; rising from 30 to 140 feet in 

 height on the slope."f Now each of these remarkable buildings 

 to which there is nothing at all similar either in ancient or 

 modern Europe, or even in Asia, consists of a pyramid with 

 steps up to its top on three of its sides, while the fourth forms 

 the wall for a temple enclosure. But the structure described in 

 in a former part of my lecture on the authority 

 of Mr. Ellis — the temple and pyramid of Atehuru, 

 in Tahiti — is precisely of the same character, and 

 might have been erected by the same architect from the 

 same plan ; while in Easter Island, the supposed point of 

 departure from Polynesia to America, there are monolith statues 

 quite as large as those of Copan or Quirigua. Can we doubt 

 then that the Polynesians and Indo- Americans are the same 

 people, and that their forefathers carried with them across the 

 vast Pacific and to both of the American continents, the peculiar ■ 



* Humboldt's " Researches" I., 89. 

 t Stephen's Incidents of Travel in Central America, Page 81. 



