mmed aloud, and profited by the new opening the trapper had
made, to shift the grounds of the discussion--

"By Old and New World, my excellent associate," he said, "it is not to
be understood that the hills, and the valleys, the rocks and the rivers
of our own moiety of the earth do not, physically speaking, bear a date
as ancient as the spot on which the bricks of Babylon are found; it
merely signifies that its moral existence is not co-equal with its
physical, or geological formation."

"Anan!" said the old man, looking up enquiringly into the face of the
philosopher.

"Merely that it has not been so long known in morals, as the other
countries of Christendom."

"So much the better, so much the better. I am no great admirator of your
old morals, as you call them, for I have ever found, and I have liv'd
long as it were in the very heart of natur', that your old morals are
none of the best. Mankind twist and turn the rules of the Lord, to suit
their own wickedness, when their devilish cunning has had too much time
to trifle with His commands."

"Nay, venerable hunter, still am I not comprehended. By morals I do
not mean the limited and literal signification of the term, such as
is conveyed in its synonyme, morality, but the practices of men, as
connected with their daily intercourse, their institutions, and their
laws."

"And such I call barefaced and downright wantonness and waste,"
interrupted his sturdy disputant.

"Well, be it so," returned the Doctor, abandoning the explanation in
despair. "Perhaps I have conceded too much," he then instantly added,
fancying that he still saw the glimmerings of an argument through
another chink in the discourse. "Perhaps I have conceded too much, in
saying that this hemisphere is literally as old in its formation, as
that which embraces the venerable quarters of Europe, Asia, and Africa."

"It is easy to say a pine is not so tall as an alder, but it would be
hard to prove. Can you give a reason for such a belief?"

"The reasons are numerous and powerful," returned the Doctor, delighted
by this encouraging opening. "Look into the plains of Egypt and Arabia;
their sandy deserts teem with the monuments of their antiquity; and then
we have also recorded documents of their glory; doubling the proofs of
their former greatness, now that they lie stripped of their fertility;
while we look in vain for similar evidences that man has ever reached
the summit of civilisation on this