cute their enquiries to a beneficial result. It
would seem as if he had aimed his studies, directed his researches,
timed his travels, and planned his occupations, with a kind of
presentiment, that he should in time be called to the very task he
undertook. Indeed some have said that there was an actual precognition
of it, by means of a vision, while he was yet a student in theology with
the Abbe Guissot. But, the Society, upon the motion of a learned member,
caused their doubts of the truth of the story to be placed upon record.

Previously to the departure of M. Verdier, a special meeting of the
Society was called, and a committee of thirty members appointed to
prepare suitable directions, in the form of interrogatories, for his
guidance. They were to report on two different sets, the first (A.)
which were to relate to the ancient inhabitants of the country; the
second (B.) to the race who were its then possessors. After a sitting
of twenty days in the hall of the Sorbonne, the Committee reported on
the papers A. and B., which were accepted without debate.

A.

1. He was to ascertain when the tumuli, or mounds, were built,
and for what use.

2. Who built them? Were they Malays? If they were Malays, did
they come from Australasia, or from the Islands of the Pacific
Ocean?

3. If they were not Malays, who were they? Were they
Mauritanians, _vide_ Postel; or Scandinavians, _vide_ Busbeck;
or Canaanites, _vide_ Gomara, and John de Lery; or descendants
of the tribes led captive by Psalmanazar, _vide_ Thevet; or of
Shera and Japhet, _vide_ Torniel; or a colony of Romans,
_vide_ Marinocus; or Gauls, _vide_ James Charron; or
Friezelanders, _vide_ Hamconius and Juffredus Petri; or Celtae,
_vide_ Abraham Milius; or Phoenicians, _vide_ Le Compte; or
Carthaginians, _vide_ Father Acosta, &c. &c.?

4. Had this ancient people the art of embalming human bodies,
or is that art of modern invention, as some pretend?

5. If M. Verdier find they are of Malay origin, he must
ascertain in what year of the world they went to America, and
who was their leader;

6. How long they resided there, and under which pope they were
driven away or exterminated.

7. In what manner, and by what conveyance, was the
transportation made? Did they cross Behring's Straits, or on