104 Antiquities and Languages of the Mexican Indians* 



their emigration, their diseases, he speaks with the greatest de-* 

 tail and accuracy. 



After the death of this great naturalist, 322 years B. C, Theo- 

 phrastus was the most celebrated of the philosophers of the Ly- 

 ceum. He was in botany, what Aristotle had been in zoology : 

 but Greece being now subdued by the Macedonians, and the Ro- 

 man power having gradually interfered with the independence 

 of all free states, science began to decline : nor can the efforts of 

 Pliny the naturalist, be considered a revival of natural science; 

 feeble as those efforts were, they were soon lost in the prostration of 

 all independent action, under the despotism of the Roman emperors. 

 After the death of Augustus, flatterers and panders of the basest 

 kind alone flourished, with few exceptions. The Roman people, at 

 length, unaccustomed to great examples of virtue and knowledge, 

 lost all reverence for them ; and before the final overthrow of 

 the empire, by the descendants of those pastoral tribes who had so 

 frequently interrupted the first dawnings of science, the Romans 

 did not know where the dependencies were situated, of which they 

 were the nominal masters. So surely does it happen, that when 

 men, from whatever causes, are permitted to administer the gov- 

 ernment of a people, with reference solely to their own gratifi- 

 cations, that the public mind, having no bright examples to 

 impel it forward, ebbs, and exposes a vast and unproductive 

 barren. Such was the result long before the fall of the Roman 

 empire. 



( To be continued.) 



ANTiaUlTIES AND LANGUAGES OF THE MEXICAN INDIANA. 



The writer of the following communication, a distinguished 

 Mexican gentleman, is entitled to the cordial acknowledgements 

 of the Editor, for this interesting paper, and flatters himself it is 

 only the first of a series, that will reflect great light upon both 

 the antiquities and languages of the aboriginal nations of this 

 continent. 



There are strong reasons for supposing that the ancient Indian 

 monuments which are found so widely diffused over the territory 

 of the U. States, derived their origin from a people, skilled in 

 arts to which the natives here, who have been known to our 

 race, have always been strangers. We have no evidence, that 



