pes, as well as those of
the typical heads of savage animals surmounting the heads of the
statues, are all to be found on the banks of the Nile, and were probably
derived from the same central source. While the tribes who proceeded
westward peopled Egypt, others, among whom a similar system of idolatry
prevailed, may have migrated towards the east, and finally made their
way across the Pacific to the shores of America.

PART THREE, CHAPTER ONE.

SOUTH AMERICA.

SCENES OF ANCIENT DAYS.

Time was when a rocky island, against which dashed the surges of the
Atlantic on the east and of the Pacific on the west, rose in solitude
from the wide-extending ocean where now the highlands of Guiana appear
above the surrounding plains. Not another spot of dry land was to be
found--so geologists affirm--between that point and the hills of Canada
on the north, or for thousands of miles southward towards the pole, over
that portion of the globe's surface now occupied by the vast continent
of America. Then, by slow degrees, the mountains of Brazil, with their
mines of glittering gems, appeared above the surface of the waters, amid
which huge reptile-like whales, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and
cetiosaurs buffeted the billows, and vast saurians, lizards, and
alligators, rivalling the elephant in bulk, and twice his length--such
as the megalosaurus, the iguanodon, and teleosaurus--crawled along the
slimy shores; while giant birds, with wide-spreading feet, stalked
across the newly-formed plains, or flew shrieking, with wings of
prodigious expanse skimming the glittering sea,--the lords paramount of
this lower world. At length the earth, convulsed by mighty throes in
the far-away west from north to south, began to cast up a long line of
rocky heights, now to sink, now to rise once more above the surface,--
till by degrees Pelion piled on Ossa--the vast chain of the Cordilleras
rose towards the skies, forming a mighty barrier between the two great
oceans.

On the eastern side, the waves of the Atlantic, beating continuously,
brought down into the shallow sea the debris from the newly-formed
rocks, gradually filling up the spaces between the already created
islands; and the streams, running down from the mountain heights, formed
the plan of the three great river-systems of the continent--the Orinoco
in the north, the Amazon in the centre, and La Plata in the south.

The Almighty Creator appears always to have worked by mechanical