154 



In every part of the forests, far from any human 

 habitation, on digging the earth fragments of 

 pottery and delft are found. The taste for this 

 kind of fabrication seems to have been common 

 heretofore to the natives of both Americas. To 

 the north of Mexico, on the banks of the Rio 

 Gila, among the ruins of an Azteck city* ; in the 

 United States, near the tumuli of the Miamis*f~ ; 

 in Florida, and in every place where any traces 

 of ancient civizilation are found ; the soil covers 

 fragments of painted pottery ; and the extreme 

 resemblance of the ornaments they display is 

 striking. Savage nations, and those civilized 

 people J, who are condemned by their political 

 and religious institutions always to imitate 

 themselves, strive as if by instinct, to perpetuate 

 the same forms, to preserve a peculiar type or 

 style, and to follow the methods and processes 

 which were employed by their ancestors. In 

 North America, fragments of delft have been 

 discovered in places where lines of fortification 



* Casas grandes. (Political Essay on New Spain, vol. \, 

 p. 298.) 



t Drake, in his interesting work, <e View of Cincinnati/* 

 1815, p. 200, 209, and 218. 



% The Hindoos, the Tibetians, the Chinese, the ancient 

 Egyptians, the Aztecks, the Peruvians, with whom the 

 tendency toward civilization in a body prevented the free 

 development of the faculties of individuals. (See my Re- 

 searches on the American Monuments, Introduction, vol. 

 xiii, p. 11 of the present work.) 



