e seen sculptured or
painted on the monuments. An Egyptian pyramid is no more the same thing
as a Mexican pyramid than a Chinese pagoda is the same thing as an
English light-house. It was not made in the same way, nor for the same
uses. The ruined monuments show, in generals and in particulars, that
the original civilizers in America were profoundly different from the
ancient Egyptians. The two peoples can not explain each other.

This, however, does not require us to assert positively that the Central
American "Colhuas" and the legendary Atlantes could not possibly have
been the same people, or people of the same race. Room may be left for
any amount of conjecture not inconsistent with known facts, without
making it necessary to accept a theory of the origin of the old Mexican
race which at present can neither be proved nor disproved.

IT WAS AN ORIGINAL CIVILIZATION.

It has been said, very justly, by one explorer of the Mexican and
Central American ruins, that "the American monuments are different from
those of any other known people, of a new order, and entirely and
absolutely anomalous; they stand alone." The more we study them, the
more we find it necessary to believe that the civilization they
represent was originated in America, and probably in the region where
they are found. It did not come from the Old World; it was the work of
some remarkably gifted branch of the race found on the southern part of
this continent when it was discovered in 1492. Undoubtedly it was very
old. Its original beginning may have been as old as Egypt, or even
farther back in the past than the ages to which Atlantis must be
referred; and it may have been later than the beginning of Egypt. Who
can certainly tell its age? Whether earlier or later, it was original.

Its constructions seem to have been a refined and artistic development
of a style of building different from that of any other people, which
began with ruder forms, but in all the periods of its history preserved
the same general conception. They show us the idea of the Mound-Builders
wrought out in stone and embellished by art. The decorations, and the
writing also, are wholly original. There is no imitation of the work of
any people ever known in Asia, Africa, or Europe. It appears evident
that the method of building seen in the great ruins began with the ruder
forms of mound-work, and became what we find it by gradual development,
as the advancing civilization supplied