( 59 5 



Mexico in the New ; but we are deftitutc of hift o- 

 rical monuments to carry us any farther, and there 

 is nothing, I repeat it, but the knowledge of the 

 primitive languages which is capable of throwing 

 any light upon thefe clouds of impenetrable dark- 

 nefs. It is not a little furprifing, that a method fo 

 natural and practicable has been hitherto neglected 

 of making difcoveries as interefting at leaft, as the 

 greateft part of thofe which for thefe two ages pad 

 have employed the attention of the learned. We 

 fhould, at leaft, be fatisfied amongft that prodigious 

 number of various nations inhabiting America, and 

 differing fo much in language from one another 5 

 which are thole who fpeak languages totally and 

 entirely different from thofe of the Old World, and 

 who, confequently, muft be reckoned to have pafs- 

 ed over to America in the earlieft ages ; and thofe, 

 who from the analogy of their language, with thefe 

 ufed in the three other parts of the globe, leave 

 room to judge that their migration has been more 

 recent, and ought to be attributed to fhipwrecks, or 

 to fome accident fi mil ar to thofe of which I have 

 fpoken in the courfe of this diflertation. 



HISTORICAL 



