worship of fire in the open air, and avoiding the use of temples, is precisely that of Zoroaster, as is also their leading doctrine of two spirits, good and evil, ruling the world; and the allegory of the egg of Ormudz has been found on an earthwork on the top of the hill in Adam's County, Ohio. It represents the coil of the serpent the egg produced, and is 700 feet long; but it is thought it would reach, if the coil were lengthened out, 1,000 feet. The jaws of the serpent are represented as widely distended as if in the act of swallowing. In the interstice is an oval or egg-shaped mound. This repetition of a symbol is considered a further proof of eastern derivation, while it is stated on the same authority, that the wrong-headedness and persistence of idea in the Indians entirely resemble the oriental branches of the great Semitic family. But the Kamskadale, the Koriak, the AinoJapanese, and the Korean or semi-Chinese, are the Asiatic languages which those spoken by the Indian tribes most remarkably resemble.t The shape of this continent has induced some geologists to infer that America and Africa were once united, the projecting part of the latter fitting exactly to the Gulf of Mexico, and the prominent part of South America being about the size and shape to fill the Gulf of Guinea. Antonio de Herera, also, in his “Decad," seems to favour the idea that the Americans were of the posterity of Ham; representing that they went out of Africa,—the earth being (něpělěgah) divided or split asunder in the days of Peleg,-to that part of America which now looks toward Africa. But in opposition to such an hypothesis, it is remarkable that no trace has been found among the aboriginal inhabitants of real African origin. "The over-valuation of the Esquimaux peculiarities," says Dr. Latham, to which he might have added some philological difficulties, "is the great obstacle in American ethnology. When these are cut down to their due level, the connection between America and Asia is neither more nor less than one of the clearest we have. It is certainly clearer than the junction of Africa with north-western Asia; not more obscure than that between the Oceanica and the transgangetic peninsula; and • Vide Information respecting the condition and prospects of the Indian tribes of the United States, collected and prepared under the Bureau of Indian affairs, per Act of Congress. Also Report of the United States Exploring Expedition. + Man and bis Migrations, by Dr Latham, vol. i., p. 185. + Herera Decad, I., book ix., chap. ii. EARLY CONDITION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN TRIBES. 15 incalculably less mysterious than that which joins Asia to Europe."* The whole original native population, except the Esquimaux and people of Nootka Sound, who inhabit the coast of the North Atlantic Ocean to the south of Behring's Straits, and who appear both in stature, physical conformation, and language, to resemble the inhabitants of Lapland and the northern borders of Asia, of the Samoide family, to which we have already referred, are generally, if not universally, supposed to have sprung from one and the same race; agreeing in their general appearance, manners, and usages, along the whole line of coast, from the Straits of Magellan to Hudson's Bay. As some evidence of the identity in stock of the original inhabitants of both divisions of the continent, the Natchez Indians, familiar to the novelist from the romances of Chateaubriand, are known to the ethnologist as pre-eminent amongst the Indians of the Mississippi for their Mexican characteristics: they flattened the head,-worshipped the sun,-kept up an undying fire,recognised a system of caste,-and sacrificed human victims. Some special distinctions obtain among the different tribes, as it is natural to suppose; whilst they are found, also, in various stages of society, from the lowest savage state to that of a halfcivilized people; but still the above description is so generally applicable as to sanction the opinion, that, the far greater part of the native tribes of both Americas have had but one common origin, and that that origin is Asiatic. Even the most northerly Indians, those of the Rocky Mountains (the Strong Bows and the Dog Ribs), have a tradition that they originally came from the westward; from a level country, where there was no water, a country producing trees and fruits now unknown to them; and that among the strange animals altogether different from those of the country they now inhabit, there was one whose visage bore a striking resemblance to the human face (supposed to be the ourang outang); and that they were driven from that land by a flood, and, proceeding northerly, came to a strait which they crossed on a raft, which strait or passage has since been frozen over and become impassable. As the result of frequent and careful investigation by men of high character for learning and research, it is now the general • Man and his Migrations, vol. i., pp. 184–5. i and may be considered the established opinion that they are of the Mongolian race, from the northern part or central table land of Asia, the inhabitants of which they resemble in their roving, patriarchal mode of life, as well as in the physical characteristics of that peculiar family. But while the same style of features, the same physical form, and the same habits and pursuits of life, characterise the inhabitants in both divisions of this vast continent, notwithstanding the diversities of language, which suggest a difference also of moral condition as well as in the stock from whence they sprung, it is not a little singular that, though the North American Indians are by so many, from their physical conformation, classed with the Mongolians, they are generally said to differ in all these respects, as also in intellectual character, from every other variety of the human race. At the same time it may be said, that the general agreement which exists among themselves is considered as even more remarkable than their disagreement from the other branches of the great family of man. Notwithstanding a state of separation which makes every inhabitant of the wild a foe, except a being of the same tribe, -notwithstanding the little fusion which occurs among their families, so similar are their social circumstances, so uniform the action of external nature upon their condition, so unvaried the arts of life among them, that they preserve the same aspect through the whole continent; and variety of temperature, which impresses a diversity of character on so many of the objects of nature, is less powerful in producing differences among them than their common habits and pursuits in moulding them to the same form and feature." "How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, One species thus admirably varied, of one understanding thus variously modified, and of one organization assuming appearances so diverse! も CHAPTER II. NATURAL DIVISIONS AND Extent of the United States.-Chief towns. Characteristic features of the country. Mountains, prairies, lakes, rivers, springs, islands. Past and present general boundaries and extent. Original number of States. Comparison with other nations. Situation of its frontier coast in regard to Europe. The attention of the reader is now more especially called to that part of the continent comprehending the United States, and to this chiefly in its north-eastern, middle, and southern grand political divisions. The American government, i.e., that of the United States, exercises dominion over a country which, perhaps, at the present moment, that of England only excepted, is more extensive, and will support more inhabitants, than that of any nation upon the earth. From the Atlantic on the east to the Pacific on the west, from the Lake countries on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south,-her shores thus washed by the great ocean, her lakes, and seas, and rivers the most majestic that water the earth, her commerce whitening every sea,—her railroads and canals, like great arteries, intersecting her whole surface, carrying life and activity to the remotest corner, and whose more densely populated surface is overspread with a network of magnetic wires, this colossal empire, embracing every character of soil and every degree of climate, has extended within the last half century, and filled the untrodden forest, the uninhabited plain, and the bleak hills with commerce, increasing towns, and a numerous population."* The sun is four hours in its passage from the time when it first shines on the eastern shores of Maine till it strikes the waters of the Pacific, and it is about four months in passing through the degrees of latitude of the United States, in its northern and southern declination embracing six varieties of climate. As already indicated, the United States may be distributed into four grand political divisions,-eastern, middle, southern, and western. The eastern, or New England States, comprehend those situated to the east of Hudson's River, viz., Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The middle States comprise New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The southern States include Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, the Floridas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and the district of Columbia. And now that the newly-acquired States and territories of Texas, New Mexico, California, and others, are added to this section of the Union, it comprises the whole region that extends from the Susquehana to the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The western States and organized territories comprise Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oregon. The principal or most important towns in the Union are New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans; but the capital is Washington. All these are situated on the sea-coast, or on the banks of navigable rivers. Among the most considerable cities or towns of the western States, are Detroit in Michigan, Chicago in Illinois near the head of Lake Michigan, Milwaukee in Wisconsin, St. Louis in Missouri, and Cincinnati and Cleveland in Ohio. The characteristic features of the entire continent are principally its mountains, prairies, lakes, and rivers. The chief mountain ranges or systems, are the Rocky or Stony Mountains, in the north-western part of the continent, regarded as a continuation of the Andes of Chili and Peru, or the northerly prolongation of the Mexican Central Chain; and the Alleghany or Appellachian series in the eastern. The latter chain crosses the United States from east to west-from Maine to Georgia-extending two or three, or, according to some authorities, four thousand miles in length; rising to their highest altitude in Virginia; their breadth varying from fifty to one hundred and twenty miles. The chain of the Rocky Mountains is nearly nine thousand miles in length, and from one to three hundred in width. This is the longest range of mountains in the world, extending along the whole of the American continent, from the southern shores of Patagonia to the borders of the icy sea. Some of the ridges of that part of the chain distinguished by the name of the Rocky Mountains, are thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. Mount Elias, in the |