147 
Tartar race have passed over to the north- 
west coast of America ; 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 'f-, 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 Araerika’s Bevolikeruag, p. 155, 169. 
+ Adelung’s Mithridates, Th. 1, p. 277? Schlegel, ueber 
Sprache and Weisheit der Inder, p. 7. 
L 2 
