474 



diversity of climates and the influence of heights* 

 retain the impression of a common type, the 

 cosmogonic traditions of nations display every 

 where the same physiognomy, and preserve fea- 

 tures of resemblance, that fill us with astonish- 

 ment. How many different tongues, belonging 

 to branches that appear completely distinct, 

 transmit to us the same facts ! The basis of the 

 traditions concerning races that are destroyed, 

 and the renewal of nature, scarcely vary*; 

 though every nation gives them a local colour- 

 ing. In the great continents, as in the smallest 

 islands of the Pacific Ocean, it is always on the 

 loftiest and nearest mountain, that the remains 

 of the human race have been saved ; and this 

 event appears the more recent, in proportion as 

 the nations are uncultivated, and as the know- 

 ledge they have of their own existence has not a 

 very remote date. After having studied with 

 attention the Mexican monuments anterior to 

 the discovery of the New World ; after having 

 penetrated into the forests of the Oroonoko, and 

 observed the diminutiveness of the European 

 establishments, their solitude, and the state of 

 the tribes that have remained independent; we 

 cannot permit ourselves to attribute the analo- 

 gies we have just cited to the influence of the 



* See my Monumens des Peuples indigenes de VAmfrique, 

 J>. 20*, 206, 2-23, and' 227. 



