compared with this gigantic work of Anahuac, being but twenty-five hundred feet square, which is one hundred and fifty rods, or nearly so, while the pyramid we are speaking of, partly natural, partly artificial, is at its base twelve thousand and sixty-six feet;-this, thrown into rods, gives seven hundred and fifty-four, and into miles is two and three-eights, or nearly so, which is five times greater than that of Babel."

The same author says, in referring to the magnitude of the tumuli and pyramids found along the Mediterranean: "But whatever power, wealth and genius these may exhibit-where the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Persians and the Greeks have displayed the monuments of this most ancient sort of antiquity-all, all is realized in North and South America, and doubtless under the same superstitions and eras of time."

Herodotus tells us that a hundred thousand men, relieved every three months, were employed in building the pyramids of Cheops in Egypt. Ten years were spent in preparing the road whereon the stones and material were to be transported, and twenty more in erecting the edifice. Yet all this expenditure of time, of human life and labor, was primarily for the glorification of a single prince in his attempt to prove to posterity that the gods alone were not immortal, and secondly, as an imperishable burial place after death. Just here occurs the thought that if such were the object and use of pyramids in the Old World, why is it not equally probable that such was the purpose of their erection in the New ? If so, the people by whom they were erected must have been a people of bondsmen or slaves, who were ground under the heel of a cruel despotism. Indeed there are many reasons to believe-from their great pyramids, and the peculiar formation of their cities-that the early Americans lived under an ultra-despotic government, probably an oligarchy, as such monuments could only have been raised to glorify the few at the blood and expense of the many.

ments.

Now comes the question as to the age of these ruins and monuHow are we to locate the date of their origin if we have no key to their identity, save their time-effaced frescoes or moss-grown columns and walls, many of the latter 15 feet or more in thickness, and built with an art and strength that defy alike competition and decay? Norman answers the question by comparing them to the ruins of other cities of which we have some knowledge. "The

result of such a comparison," he says, "startles the mind with their probable antiquity." Taking for comparison the "Cloaca Maxima,” of Rome, constructed nearly twenty-five hundred years ago to drain the waters of the Forum into the Tiber, he finds it without a stone displaced, performing to the present day its destined service. "What then," he asks, "must be the age of these ruins of Chichen Itza? Evidently Chichen Itza was an anitquity when the foundation of the Parthenon at Athens, or the Cloaca Maxima at Rome were being laid." "Only in the ruins of Baalbeck, Antioch, of Carthage," or, he adds, “may we not say of Thebes, of Tadmor, of Memphis, do we find an equal ruin and desolation."

Thus we have demonstrated to us that these remains are of vast antiquity; they have come to us through the long void of ages as living testimonials to a buried past, and we cannot but accept the conclusion that their builders-a people capable of such majestic creations, adorned with painting and sculpture, and who were workers in glass and metallurgy—must have been a people of long and refined civilization, dating from hundreds, or maybe thousands of years B. C.; otherwise such creations could never have been conceived or executed. Further, that these remains were the work of a kindred race, is evident in their general resemblance, their apparent purpose, age, and general style of architecture. And the origin of all these bygone nations, tradition unites in saying, was in the land of the far off East, beyond the sea.

In tracing out the identity of any nation, there are two channels outside of language or public record, by which it may be possible to trace back to the fountain-head the origin of that nation. These two channels are Architecture and Customs: the former including all details of sculpture and ornamentation, particularly as applied to temples of worship, places of sacred or public resort, and also public monuments and works; the latter, the rites of worship, modes of living, modes of justice, public ceremonies, public laws, and all the other vital principles that form the sub-strata of a nation's strength and greatness.

When a colony of people branches off from the parent stock, and become citizens of another country, they will carry with them the peculiar customs, as well as language of the fatherland. In the course of time, as these people increase and multiply, the

population will be divided into cities, towns, villages and rural districts, as in our own Province of Ontario to-day.

With this division will begin their architectural era, and here, too, the parent land will find transcript. The buildings, monuments, public halls and temples erected by them, will be in copy of those erected by their forefathers. They may have architects who will enlarge or modify preconceived ideas or designs, but in the case of emblematical monuments, or temples consecrated to religious purposes, the original conception will be faithfully followed. More particularly would this be the case among races of an earlier day, when the schools of architecture were unknown, and the era was one of darkness and superstition.

Hence, appropriate to our subject, if we could gain a knowledge of the customs of the early American races, together with a detailed examination and comparison of the American ruins, we might through these channels locate in what nation the early civilization of the New World took its birth. For this purpose we will again turn to the Toltecs, as these were probably the most authentic descendants of the early colonizers of whom we have any record. As we have said before, they are described as having been a fair, robust, bearded race, who preceded the Aztecs in Mexico centuries prior to the advent of the Spaniards. Prescott says that "through pestilence, famine, and unsuccessful wars, they disappeared from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had entered it, the greater number spreading over Central America and the neighboring isles. They were the true civilizers of the Aztecs themselves, the latter borrowing their most useful arts, as well as their complex arrangement of time."

This nation, according to their Mexican chronicler, located their origin "across the sea, in the distant East, the fabulous Hue Hue Tlapalan. Their leader was Quetzalcoatl, a white man, with a strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes, and flowing beard. He wore a mitre on his head, and was dressed in a long white robe reaching to his feet and covered with crosses. In his hand he held a sickle. His habits were ascetic, he never married, and was most chaste and pure in life. He condemned sacrifice, except fruits and flowers, and was known as the god of peace; for, when addressed on the subject of war he shut his ears with his fingers." Of the first home of the great Toltec race-the mysterious

Hue Hue Tlapalan-the same historian just quoted, says: "It is found in the history of the Toltecs that the age of the first world, as they call i', lasted 1716 years; that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and lightning from the sky; and even all the land, without exception of anything, the highest mountains, were covered up and submerged (coxtolmocatli) fifteen cubits; and here they added other fables of how men came to multiply from the few who escaped from destruction in a large chest (toptlipetocali), and how, after men had multiplied, they erected a very high tower (zacali), in order to take refuge should the second world be destroyed. Presently their language was confused, and being unable to understand each other, they went to different parts of the earth."

It must be remembered these records were written by an Aztec prince and historian who lived about the time of Cortez, and who received his information from the archives of his family. By comparing this version of the flood legend with the account given in the Book of Genesis, a striking analogy will be found; it will also be observed that these people had a clearly preserved account of the building of the tower of Babel.

Further than this the Mexican historian throws no light on the early history of the Toltecs; he leaves us in darkness as to the exact location of that Tlapalan land in the far East, though we cannot doubt it was among those teeming nations of the Orient, that have been the first great womb of all mankind.

When the Aztecs first entered Mexico they were little better than our Northern savages, but they were a strong, brave, and war. like people, and by the latter part of the 14th century had all the country under their subjection. It was at this time they began the adoption of the manners and customs of the Toltecs, absorbing one by one the different branches, until the civilization of the conquered lived again, to a certain degree, in that of the conquerers. It is in this manner then, that we have transmitted to us, though perhaps in a perverted form, the customs of the Toltecs; these in turn received their knowledge through the far branches of the Nahua family, who are unquestionably supposed to have been a part of the first colonizers. Therefore, by a close consideration of the customs existing and practiced among the Mexicans at the time of the Cortez

invasion, we may, by comparing the same with those of other nations, glean some light at the identity of those earliest races.

We will take first in order, as the most vital of customs, the rites of religion. "The Aztecs," we are told by Prescott, "inherited from their Toltec predecessors the belief in a supreme Creator and Lord of the universe. They addressed him in their prayers as "the God by whom we live," "omnipresent, that knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts," "without whom man is nothing," "invisible, incorporeal, one God, of perfect perfection and purity," "under whose wings we find repose and a sure defense." "These sublime attributes," continues Prescott, "infer no inadequate conception of the true God. But the idea of unity-of a being with whom volition is action, who has no need of inferior ministers to execute his purpose-was too simple or too vast for their understandings, and they sought relief as usual in the plurality of deities; who presided over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various occupations of man." At first the ceremonies of the Aztecs were of a light and cheerful order, consisting of national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined. Processions of women and children crowned with garlands, and bearing offerings of fruits, the ripened maize, or sweet incense of copal and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of the deity were stained with no blood save that of animals. Human sacrifices among the Aztecs were not adopted until early in the 14th century, about two hundred years before the invasion of the Spaniards. Turning to the history of the Egyptians, we find that their earliest worship was of but one God, infallible and eternal, without beginning, without end. They believed a heaven awaited the good, and a hell the wicked; there was a judgement day when the hearts of all men were weighed. At first their sacrifices were of fruits and flowers, and sweet incense smoked on their alars; later on they personified God in the sun, whom they addressed as "Ra;" still later the purity and virtue of their primitive faith became buried under the conception of polytheism.

The Aztecs embalmed their dead by taking out the bowels and replacing them with aromatic herbs and substances, after which they, in many instances, wrapped the body in a covering of cloths. Turning to Rollin's History of Egypt, we are told that the Egyptians embalmed their dead by cutting a hole in the side with an Ethiopian stone that was as sharp as a razor; the body was then taken and