194 
VIEWS OF LOUISIANA. 
and Chili, when first visited by Europeans, exhibited only the 
dawn of civilization ? Perhaps it was the fiftieth approach doomed 
to suffer a relapse, before the sacred flame could be extended to 
other portions of the continent: perhaps, at some distant period 
the flame had been widely spread, and again extinguished by 
the common enemies of the human race. But 1 am askeu, if 
this had been the case, should we not see indubitable proofs, in 
the remains of antiquity, edifices of stone, mines, and laborious 
works of human hands. I answer, that nature is ever laboring 
to restore herself, she is ever engaged in replacing inks primi¬ 
tive state, whatever changes the hand of man may effect in her 
appearance. Excavations of the earth would be filled up by the 
hand of time, and piles of stone when separated from the living 
rock, would crumble into dust. America may have been less 
fortunate than Europe in those happy inventions which serve in 
some measure to perpetuate improvements, and yet, in some of 
the arts she may have attained a greater excellence. The cha¬ 
racter of her civilization may have been different from any of 
which we have a knowledge, and her relapse produced by 
causes of which we can form no conjecture. 
Who will assign, as the age of America, a period of years 
different from that allowed to, what has been denominated, the 
old worid ? A multiplicity of proofs contradict the recency of 
her origin; deeply imbedded stores of carbonated wood, the 
traces of ancient volcanoes ! 1 could appeal on this subject to 
her time-worn cataracts, and channels of mighty rivers, and to 
her venerable mountains, which rose when the Creator laid tiie 
foundations of the earth 1 When the eye of Europe first beheld 
her, did she appear but lately to have sprung from the deep? 
No, she contained innumerable and peculiar plants and animals, 
she was inhabited by thousands of Indians, possessing different 
languages, manners, and appearances. Gi ant then, that Ame¬ 
rica may have existed a few thousand years; the same causes 
prevailing, like effects will be produced; the same revolutions 
been acquainted with America in very remote antiquity. Plato places 
the destruction of the Atlaniides, at nine thousand years before his 
time.' 
