147 



Tartar race have passed over to the north- 

 west coast of America j and thence to the 

 south and the east, towards the banks of Gila, 

 and those of the Missouri, as etymological * 

 researches seem to indicate ; we should be less 

 surprised at finding, among the semi-barbarous 

 nations of the new continent, idols and mo- 

 numents of architecture, a hieroglyphical writ- 

 ing, and exact knowledge of the duration 

 of the year, and traditions respecting the first 

 state of the world, recalling to our minds the 

 sciences, the arts, and the religious opinions of 

 the Asiatic nations. 



In the study of the history of mankind, as 

 in that of the immensity of languages spread 

 over the face of the Globe, it would be losing 

 ourselves in a labyrinth of conjectures, were 

 we to assign a common origin to so many races, 

 and so many different tongues. The roots of 

 the Sanscrit found in the Persian tongue, the 

 great number of roots of the Persian, and even 

 of the Pahlavi, which we discover in the tongues 

 of Germannic origin *{-, give us no right to con- 

 sider the Sanscrit, the Pahlavi, or the ancient 

 language of the Medes, the Persian, and the 

 German, as derived from one and the same 



* Vater ueber Amerika's Bevollkerung-, p. 155, 1G9. 



+ Adelung's Mitliridates, Th. 1, p. 277> Schlegel, ueber 

 Sprache and Weisbeit der Inder, p. 7. 



l2 



