data, had hitherto been examined but superficially, such as those on the flux and reflux of metallic wealth; its progressive accumulation in Europe and Asia; and the quantity of gold and silver, which since the discovery of America down to the present day, the ancient continent has received from the new.' The geographical introduction at the head of the Essay on New Spain contains an account of the materials, from which the Mexican atlas was constructed. This work was

translated into English by Black, and the translation, which is indifferently executed, has appeared in this country. At a moment like this, when Mexico is again drawing the attention of the world upon her as the seat of new political horrors and follies, the work of M. de Humboldt cannot be too strongly recommended, especially to the statesmen and politicians of this country. Mexico is certainly our most important frontier neighbor, and it may be very essential to us, for aught we know, to be acquainted with the state of his imperial majesty of Anahuac's dominions. It is not so far by land from New Orleans to the city of Mexico, as from New Orleans to Eastport. We had occasion, in our number for April last, to make liberal use of M. de Humboldt's Essay on New Spain, in our own remarks on Mexico. Had M. de Humboldt written nothing but this, his name would have stood among the first philosophers of the day. We had intended to extract some specimen of the work, but have laid it down in despair, from the difficulty of selecting any thing which would bear an extract. This work is entire and complete in itself, in no ways connected with the others, which M. de Humboldt has published or projected, and being in a convenient and economical French and English form, will doubtless be among the parts of his works, which circulate most widely.

2°. About the same time with the foregoing work, appeared Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples indigenes de l'Amerique, in a large folio volume, and subsequently in two octavo volumes, with a reduced form of the plates. The 'Monuments of the Original Nations' has been translated into English, under the immediate inspection of M. de Humboldt, by Miss H. M. Williams. This work, according to the account given of it by M. de Humboldt, is intended to make known, at the same time, some of the grand scenes, which nature presents in the high chain of the Andes, and to throw light on the ancient civilization of the Americans, by the study of their monu

race.

ments of architecture, their hieroglyphics, their religious worship, and their astrological fancies. M. de Humboldt has described in this work the construction of the Teocallis, or Mexican pyramids, compared with that of the temple of Belus; the arabesques, which cover the ruins of Mitla; idols in Basalt, ornamented with the Calantica of the Isis heads; and a considerable number of symbolical paintings, representing the serpent and woman, which is the Mexican Eve, the deluge of Coxcox, and the first migrations of the people of the Aztek In the same work, he has demonstrated the surprising resemblance which the calendar of the Toltecks and the catasterisms of their zodiac possess with the divisions of time of the nations of Tartary and Tibet, as well as of the Mexican traditions of the four regenerations of the globe with the praylayas of the Hindoos and the four ages of Hesiod. He has moreover introduced into this work, besides the hieroglyphical paintings brought by himself into Europe, fragments of all the Aztecan manuscripts preserved at Rome, Velletri, Vienna, and Dresden, of which the last, by the linear symbols, recals the kouas of the Chinese. By the side of these rude monuments of the nations of America, are contained, in the same work, picturesque views of the mountainous regions inhabited by them, as those of the cataract of Tequendama, of Chimborazo, of the volcano of Jorullo and of Cayambé, whose pyramidical summit, covered with eternal ice, is directly on the equator.

The materials collected by M. de Humboldt relative to the interesting subject of the Mexican languages have already been made use of by other distinguished scholars, to whom he has communicated them, particularly Mr F. Schlegel in his considerations on the Hindoos, and professor Vater, of Königsberg, in his continuation of the Mithridates, and other works. Of these labors of professor Vater, on the languages of America, we gave a notice in our number for January last. In the fourth volume of the Mithridates, drawn up by professor Vater, from the materials collected by M. de Humboldt and various other sources, so much light is thrown on the languages of America, that we cannot but think the volume ought to find a translator in this country. If we cannot withhold from distant foreigners the credit of having preceded us in making these laborious collections, in a department of study where we ought rather to

take the lead, we ought not to be slow in availing ourselves of the fruits of their labors. Professor Vater, in the fourth volume of the Mithridates, has expressed his conviction that M. de Humboldt, by a comparison of the Mexican zodiac with those of the Tartarian nations, has completely settled the question of the identity of the two races.

6

Thus far,' says professor V, might our conjectures have reached, before the noble discovery of M. de Humboldt had presented the most complete demonstration of the connexion of the Mexicans and East Indians. The very learned and sagacious comparison, which he has made, between the divisions of time of the Mexicans and the tribes of Eastern Asia respectively, shows a visible analogy throughout their modes of computing time, which can by no means be ascribed to coincidence, especially where so many other circumstances lead us to assume a con-nexion between these nations. The Mexicans, Japanese, Thibetians, and various other nations of inner Asia have undeniably the same system in the division of their great cycle, and in the names which they give to the years, of which it is composed. This agreement is also confirmed by the still farther discovery, that a great part of the names, whereby the Mexicans designate the twenty days of their month, are precisely the signs of the zodiac, as it has been received from time immemorial by the tribes of Eastern Asia.' Vues des Cordillères, p. 152.*

In justification of these very important remarks, Mr Vater quotes, from the work of M. de Humboldt, the comparative table on which they are founded. As the Mithridates and the work of M. de H. last under consideration, are in few hands, we extract the table from them :

* Mithridates, iv. 78, 79.

The extremely artificial mode, in which the Mexicans computed time, has in fact become more and more the subject of speculation to the learned, and seems to prove that a people, which, on the one hand, was sunk to the lowest depths of moral depravity, and carried the practice of human sacrifices to a degree surpassed by no other savage people, was, on the other hand, in the possession of an astronomical system superior to the Julian calendar at Rome.* We have no space to enlarge on the subject. The documents, which illustrate this curious subject, are all in the work of M. de H. last quoted: though it is difficult to realize that this people, who had an annual intercalation to bring their year up to 365 days, and an intercalation every fifty two years to bring it to 365 days 5 hours, is the people of whom de Paw, not more than a half century since, chose to assert that they could not count beyond three. The work of M. de Humboldt now mentiond is also complete, has been published both in a large and in an octavo form, and ably translated into English.

We now proceed to indicate works of a more scientific character, which have also been published by these travellers. We name therefore,

3°. Recueil d' Observations Astronomiques, et de mesures executées dans le Nouveau continent, 2 vols. 4to. The title of this work sufficiently explains its character. It contains the result of observations made from the 12° of south to the 41° of north latitude, and a table of seven hundred geographical positions, of which two hundred and thirty five were determined by the personal observations of M. de Humboldt. It is complete.

4°. Plantes Equinoxiales recueillies au Mexique, dans l'isle de Cuba, dans les Provinces de Caraccas, de Cumana, &c. 2 vols. fol. In this work M. Bonpland has described forty new genera of plants.

5. Monographie des Melastomes, 2 vols. fol. containing the description of more than a hundred and fifty species of the family, collected in the course of the travels of Messrs de Humboldt and Bonpland. These volumes also contain the plants of the same family, brought by Richard from his voyage

Niebuhr, in his chapter on the Roman secular cycle, B. I, p. 200, says, The ancient Aztecs, whose calendar was the most perfect of any in civil use before the Gregorian Reformation, computed a great cycle of 104 solar years.' New Series, No. 13. 3