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and in some customs, did not differ at all, if we believe Clavigero, in their general character. The Mexicans had the same physical qualities, aud morals, the same idol, and the same inclinations as the Acolhuis, the Tapanecas, the Tlascallans, and the rest of the Mexican tribes, with no difference but that which was caused by education. The same might be said of almost all the inhabitants of America. They originated from one source, and the difference that in after-times existed among them, arose first from the peculiar circumstances or situation in which they lived. Nothing would illustrate this view of the subject so much as a careful contemplation of the relative state of the various tribes of Thracia and Scythia, a little after the fabulous period of Grecian history. There we may trace a striking picture of the state of the new world at the arrival of the Spaniards: in some parts they were reported to be barbarous savages and man-eating monsters as cruel as the cannibals of America, whilst, on the contrary, other tribes were represented as equally wise, civilized, and skilful in the arts, as the Peruvians and the Mexicans. The difference arose from the same cause in one place as in the other.

The Toltecas were said to be the first of the tribes of Anahuac, of whom any account has been preserved. They said that they came from Huehuetlapallan, in the kingdom of Tollan, which was situated to the north of New Mexico, beginning their migration in the first year of Tecpatl, which answers, according to Clavigero, to the five hundred and ninety-sixth year of the vulgar æra. "The Toltecas were the most celebrated people of Anahuac, for their superior civilization and skill in the arts; and they lived under regular laws. The nations that have succeeded them avow that they are indebted to the Toltecas for their knowledge of the culture of grain, cotton, pepper, and the most useful fruits. They had the art of casting gold and silver into what form they pleased; and they acquired great reputation from the cutting of all kinds of gems." All the other tribes came from the north. The Chichemecas and the Acolhuis, who followed the Toltecas, came from the same quarter, and they were equally civilized, preserving, too, a distinction between the nobles and the plebeians.

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The Otomites are supposed by Clavigero to be some of the most ancient of all the tribes of Anahuac; they were much more barbarous than the others, for they dwelt in a wild and rugged district, amongst the caves and the rocks: they, too, are said to have come from the north. The Mexicans came, according to their tradition, from Aztlan to the north of the gulf of California. Boturini supposes Aztlan to be a province of Asia; but Betancourt, with more probability, places it 2700 miles from Mexico.

These traditionary accounts of the direction in which the first people of America spread themselves, are supported by the traces of their works that are yet to be found in various parts. Humboldt has observed, that" in the whole of Mexico and Peru are found traces of great civilization on the mountain plains. We have seen ruins of palaces and baths at the height of from 1600 to 1800 toises. Only people of a northern origin could have enjoyed such a climate." He judges that civilized people formerly inhabited the immense grass-Hoors of Northern America, from the pyramids, sepulchral tumuli, and bulwarks of extraordinary length, that are found between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanys.† Kalm met with immense masses of stone erected by the hands of men in the midst of the grassfloors of Canada, 900 French miles west of Montreal, on one of which was found an inscription in strange characters. The monuments of the American aborigines are to be compared, not with those of the modern Tartar tribes of eastern Asia, but with the remains of those people who settled soonest after the dispersion, with the gigantic works of the Cyclopean tribes, as preserved in Egypt and India

* In gauz Mexico und Peru findet man die Spuren grosser Menschenkultur auf der hohen Gebirgsebene. Wir haben Ruinen von Pallästen und Bädern in 1600 bis 1800 Toisen Höhe gesehen. Nur nordische Menschen konnten sich so eines Klima's erfreuen. -Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, p. 146.

Ich halte es allerdings für sehr wahrscheinlich, das kultiverte Völker einst diese Ebenen durchstreift haben. Grabhügel und Bollwerke von ausserordentPyramidale licher Länge zwischen dem Rocky-Mountains und dem Alleghanys scheinen diese Züge zu bewähren.-Humboldt, ibid. p. 101. See his Relat, Hist. p. 155.

and various parts of Europe and Asia. They were the works of a part of the same people who conspired in the erection of the pyramidal and cyclopean works on the plain of Shinaar. Maurice, in his Indian Antiquities, gives us a plate of "a Mexican temple to the Sun and Moon," and observes on it, "This Mexican shrine is very remarkable, because erected after the manner of the pyramidal temple of Belus at Babylon, and evidently proves in what country the Americans first caught the Sabian superstition."

None of the American traditions have any reference to the time of the first arrival of the people at that continent; but from the traditional his tories which they brought with them, and which are preserved, we may judge that it was at a very early period. Some of them, such as the inhabitants of the plain of Bogota, traced their existence to times before the moon accompanied the earth. Most of the traditions and theology of the first wandering colonies of mankind related to the deluge, to the great patriarch, and to the wonderful event which had caused their dispersion. Wherever they settled, they built pyramids and other similar edifices, and dedicated them to the great gentile deity the sun. These traditions were peculiarly fresh in the memory of the inhabitants of the western world. "Before the great inundation, which took place four thousand eight hundred years after the creation of the world," said the people of Cholula," the country of Anahuac was inhabited by giants (tzocuillixeque). All those who did not perish were transformed into fishes, save seven, who fled into caverns. When the waters subsided, one of these giants, Xelhua, surnamed the Architect, went

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to Cholollan; where, as a memorial of the mountain Tlaloc, which had served for an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill in form of a pyramid. He ordered bricks to be made in the province of Tlamanalco, at the foot of the Sierra of Cocotl; and to convey them to Cholula, he placed a file of men, who passed them from hand to hand. The gods beheld with wrath this edifice, the top of which was to reach the clouds. Irritated at the daring attempt of Xelhua, they hurled fire on the pyramid. Numbers of the workmen perished; the work was discontinued, and the monument was afterwards dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, the god of air." The fable of the giants before mentioned, which has formed the groundwork of Mr. Ranking's theory, may have been made out of the same tradition as preserved by a different tribe: they were destroyed by fire from heaven. An old writer on the Peruvian history, Levinus Apollonius Gandobraganus, who gives somewhat a different version of this history, represents the giants of St. Helens as inhabitants of this place, and as despisers both of gods and men, but says not a word of their coming thither by sea*. And it is remarkable that Acosta attributes to them, on the authority of tradition, the construction of the edifices of which there are such vast remains. How similar is this to the accounts of the Cyclopean architects of old: in both instances it is probable that the notion of the extraordinary stature of the workmen has arisen from the dimensions of their works. This, however, is certain, that the giants of America, like those of most other countries, are spoken of as aboriginal inhabitants, and not as settlers. Such were those who were con

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quered by the Tlascallans in Anahuac *.

The Chiampaneses of Anahuac asserted that they were the first people of the new world. They said that Votan, who was the grandson of that personage who had fabricated the ark to save himself and family, and who was one of the builders of the vast tower which was intended to reach to heaven, was expressly ordered by the Lord to people that fand: that the first people had come from the north, and that, when they arrived at Socunusco, they separated, the one part going to inhabit the country of Nicaragua, the other remaining in that of Chiapan. The Mistecas, who were a very civilized people, had paintings, according to Clavigero, which represented the creation of the world, the universal deluge, and the confusion of tongues. The Mexicans themselves had traditionary accounts of the same events. They said, that after the deluge a man named Cojcoj, who was saved in a boat with a woman called Jochiquetzal, disembarked on the mountain Colhuacan, where they gave being to a numerous progeny. The Peruvians, too, claim a similar origin. When the waters receded, said they, a man appeared in Tiahuacanu, who was so powerful that he divided the world into four parts, and gave them to four men, whom he called kings: the first was named Manco Capac, the second Colla, the third Tocay, and the fourth Pinahua. To Manco Capac he gave the North, to Colla the parts about the Meridian, to Tocay the East, and to Pinahua the West. Manco Capac arrived at the valley of Cozeo, and founded that city.

It is evident, therefore, whence and in what direction the Americans drew their origin. They were some of the last colonies of that same Cyclopean people, who have left remains of their works in almost every part of the world, who had peopled Egypt and India, who extended themselves over the whole extent of Asia, and who finally passed over from the north-east of Asia to the northern parts of America, and were destined to people another world. The vast buildings of the American

* Pero al fin como las Tlascaltècas venian armados y en orden, desbarataron a los gigantes, y hirieron en ellos siu dexar hombre a vida. Acosta, His. Nat. Mor. de las Ind. lib. vii. c. 3.

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aborigines, the immense stones used in their erection, the want of arches, their hieroglyphics, nay, their very manners and their theology, all combine to identify them with that wonderful race. T.W.

Mr. URBAN,

A

2, Sidmouth-street, Regency-square. REFERENCE in your Feb. Mag. page 145, to the recent observations of Mr. Robert Brown, reminded me of the old epicurean doctrine of Atoms, indivisible or ultimate particles, as it is expounded and illustrated by Lucretius, and it seemed worth the pains to enquire whether the discoveries of our ingenious philosopher would, bad he been contemporary with the Latin poet, have lent the latter any assistance in the progress of his exposition.

Lucretius reasons, that the corpora prima, or primary elements of mauer, are doubtless endowed with an immortal nature, and cannot, therefore, any one of them, be returned to a state of annihilation; otherwise, the established order of physical cause and effect, or the chain of antecedents and consequents, would be broken, the rules of expectation, by which human actions are guided, be subverted, and the sacla ferarum, the successive generations of living creatures propagated, generatim p after their kinds, would be rescinded by the sudden ap pearance of enormous monsters. And in a word, that the same force and ordinary cause, the tendency which all things exhibit to moulder and decay, would utterly destroy them, did not the eternity of matter grasp those things, the texture of which is comparatively, inter se, more or less interwoven and entangled. Moreover, these primordia must have an immortal hypostasis corpore, in order that in their final separation they may respectively furnish matter for renewing other things. Further, they enjoy solidâ* simplicitate, solid, inasmuch as they are matter without inane or pores; possessing singleness, as being uncompounded with any heterogeneous substance.

These genitalia are cæca, invisible,

Solidus from solus, alone, whence also we have soleo, because things solitary or unmixed must continue in the same state, for it is by mingling with others that they are wont to undergo a change.