that will soon be verified or disproved by geologists and naturalists,
who are never better pleased than when an inquiry, which may lead to
new views of nature, opens before them.

That the age of great books is not past, is proved by an arrival from
America--the United States' government having presented to several
public and private institutions in this country, a large, handsome
quarto, which contains, to quote the whole title, _Historical and
Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and
Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, collected and
prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, per Act
of Congress_. The preparation and arrangement of this work having been
intrusted to Mr Schoolcraft is a sufficient guarantee for its value.
It throws much light on the Indian tribes of North America, and
rectifies many erroneous ideas and impressions concerning them and
their origin. Perhaps you will allow me to give you, in a few words,
the author's views on this part of the subject. He considers the
ancient monuments, found in parts of the United States and in Mexico,
to have originated within five hundred years of the dispersion from
Babel; that the Indians are the Almogic branch of the Eber-ites; and
that the ancient monuments do not denote so high a degree of
civilisation as is generally supposed. It is only since the discovery
of America by Europeans that anything like certainty attaches to the
history of the natives. The Mohicans 'preserve the memory of the
appearance and voyage of Hudson, up the river bearing his name, in
1609;' and among other tribes similar traditions are retained. In the
wrong-headedness and persistence of idea, the Indians entirely
resemble the Oriental branches of the great Semitic family; and the
evidence shews that originally they crossed over from Asia at
Behring's Strait, a voyage still performed in canoes to the present
day. One of the titles of Montezuma was Lord of the Seven Caves; and
the caves in which tradition says the traverse took place, are taken
to be the caves or subterranean abodes still used by the Aleutian
islanders. This was current among the Aztecs in 1519, and the voyage
of the United States' Exploring Expedition has furnished a
philological proof of connection, in the peculiar termination of nouns
in _tl_, which is common to the inhabitants of Nootka Sound, as it was
to the Aztecs. The more the Indians are studied, the more does