76 
DISAPPEAEASCE OF RACES. 
dinamarca and Peru, we find pure theocracies. Fortified 
towns, highways and large edifices of stone, an extraordinary 
development ot the feudal system, the separation of castes, 
convents of men and women, religious congregations regu- 
lated by discipline more or less severe, complicated divisions 
ot time connected with the calendars, the zodiacs, and the 
astrology of the enlightened nations of Asia, — all these phe- 
nomena, in America, belong to one region only, the long 
and narrow Alpine band extending from the thirtieth degree 
of north latitude to the twenty-fifth degree of south. The 
migration of nations in the ancient world was from east to 
west ; the Basques or Iberians, the Celts, the Germans, and 
the Pelasgi, appeared in succession. In the New World 
similar migrations flowed from north to south. Among the 
nations that inhabit the two hemispheres, the direction of 
this movement followed that of the mountains ; but, in the 
torrid zone, the temperate table-lands of the Cordilleras had 
greater influenee on the destiny of mankind, than the 
mountains of Asia and central Europe. As, properly speak- 
ing, only civilized nations have a history, tbe history of the 
Americans is necessarily no more than that of a small por- 
tion of the inhabitants of the mountains. Profound ob- 
scurity envelops the vast country which stretches from the 
eastern slope of the Cordilleras towards the Atlantic ; and 
for this very reason, whatever in that country relates to the 
preponderance of one nation over others, to distant migra- 
tions, to the physiognomical features which denote a foreign 
race, excite our deepest interest. 
Amidst the plains of North America, some powerful 
nation, which has disappeared, constructed circular, square, 
and octagonal fortifications ; walls six thousand toises in 
length ; tumuli from seven to eight hundred feet in diameter, 
and one himdred and forty feet in height, sometimes round, 
sometimes with several stories, and containing thousands of 
skeletons. These skeletons are the remains of men less 
slender, and more squat, than the present inhabitants ot 
those countries. Other bones wrapped in fabrics resembling 
those of the Sandwich and Feejee Islands, are found in the 
natural grottoes of Kentucky. What is become ot those 
jiations of Louisiana anterior to the Lenni-Lenapes, the 
Shawanoso, and pernaps even to the Sioux (Nadowes.ses, 
