FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  
d pages, with more than ninety engravings, under the title of _Aboriginal Monuments of New-York, comprising the results of Original Surveys and Explorations, with an Appendix_. This is now, we believe, on the eve of publication. A second volume is entitled, _The Serpent Symbol, and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principle, in America_. It contains, also, extended incidental illustrations of the religious systems of the American aborigines, and of the symbolical character of the ancient monuments in the United States. It will form a large octavo of two hundred and fifty pages, with sixty-three engravings, and will be published by Mr. Putnam. The first of these works, constituting part of the second volume of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," may be regarded as a continuation of the author's _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, forming the first volume of those contributions. It gives a succinct account of the aboriginal remains of the state of New-York, which were thoroughly investigated by the author, under the joint auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and the New-York Historical Society, in 1848. It strips the subject of all the absurd hypotheses and conjectures with which it has been involved by speculative and fanciful minds, and gives us a new and full statement of facts, from which there is no difficulty in getting at correct results. The appendix, which forms quite half of the volume, is devoted to the consideration of several of the more interesting questions stated in connection with the subject of our antiquities generally, and has a closer relation to the previously published volume than to the present memoir. The _rationale_ of symbolism is very elaborately deduced from an analysis of the primitive religious structures of the Greeks, and applied, as we think, with entire success, to the elucidation of the origin and purposes of a large part of the monumental remains in the western United States. Indeed this whole work is dependent on, and illustrative of, the other, which must be imperfectly understood without it. The same is true of the second work, on the "Serpent Symbol," etc., which, however, is chiefly devoted to inquiries into the philosophy and religion of the aboriginal American nations, and the relations which they sustained to the primitive systems of the other continent. The principal inquiry is, how far the identities which, in these respects, confessedly existed betwee
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
volume
 

American

 

systems

 
religious
 
United
 
States
 

aboriginal

 

remains

 

subject

 

devoted


Smithsonian
 
author
 

primitive

 

published

 

Monuments

 

engravings

 

Symbol

 

Serpent

 

results

 

relation


elaborately
 

deduced

 

confessedly

 
closer
 

analysis

 
generally
 
rationale
 

respects

 

present

 

symbolism


previously

 

memoir

 
stated
 
correct
 

appendix

 
difficulty
 

betwee

 

questions

 

connection

 

interesting


existed

 

consideration

 
antiquities
 

structures

 
philosophy
 
dependent
 

illustrative

 

religion

 
nations
 

relations