cily, Calabria, France and England, fossil plants, reptiles, and the remains of quadrupeds have been discovered, some of which from their form and structure it is apparent must have existed in a much warmer climate, than those countries possess at present; others are species of genera analogous to those now flourishing in warmer districts, and others are exactly and specifically identical with those which now are found only in tropical climates. In the superficial deposits of Europe, are found the remains of the elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, lion, hippopotamus, and hyena, animals now all occupying warmer regions. In northern Siberia, America, and even upon the very shores of Behring's straits, the bones of the rhinoceros and mammoth have been discovered,* while the remains of plants, corals, and

*The bones of the mammoth are, as it is well known, widely spread over the American continent, and in some places in great profusion. Cuvier says that its remains are in a better state of preservation than any other fossil bones; and there are some curious facts which may give rise to the conjecture, that its extinction is more recent than has been supposed. Charlevoix, in speaking of the Orignal (elk), narrates an Indian tradition of "a great Orignal,” an enormous animal, whose skin was proof against all kinds of arms, and that he had “a kind of arm which grew out of his shoulder."— Voyage, vol. i. p. 88. Dr. James, in describing the various forms under which the Wahconda is supposed to appear to the medicine-men of the Missouri tribes, observes that "one individual attributed to an animal from which he received his medicines, the form and features of the elephant."—Vol. i. p. 246. Some bodies of the mammoth found in the United States, have been well preserved, and in one case, where parts of the flesh and stomach were still existing, within the latter the remains of plants now known in Virginia were observed. -Bakewell's Geology, p. 335. It is Clavigero, I believe, who says

madrepores, upon Melville island, seventy-five degrees north latitude, are of such, as could have subsisted only in the heat of the tropics. Innumerable facts of this character have induced geologists to conclude, that the northern hemisphere, at some distant period possessed a much warmer climate, congenial with the physical constitution of this its extinct animal and vegetable kingdom, and which diminished gradually, even after the appearance upon the earth of a great portion of the existing species. But to return to the theory under discussion, there is

that a tomb in the city of Mexico, upon being opened, was found to contain the bones of an entire mammoth, the sepulchre appearing to have been formed expressly for their reception. Mr. Latrobe relates, that during the prosecution of some excavations near the city of Tezcuco, one of the ancient roads or causeways was discovered, and on one side, only three feet below the surface, in what may have been the ditch of the road, there lay the entire skeleton of a mastodon. It bore every appearance of having been coeval with the period when the road was used, and he suggests that these animals may have been the beasts of burden of the ancient inhabitants.-Latrobe's Ramb. in Mex., vol. i. p. 145. The tusks of the mammoth, or of an animal whose bones are often found accompanying it, in this country, bear a near resemblance to the tusk of the elephant.-Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., vol. iv. pp. 512, 513. It has been thought that the head and trunk of the elephant have been represented upon the Mexican monuments, and in some of their paintings, particularly in the Codex Mexicanus at Vienna. Waldeck says that they are to be seen at Palenque and Uxmal, and remarks that in the figures at Uxmal, the trunk is longer than that of the tapir, and is turned upwards in the air, facts which he considers as showing decisively that the head of the tapir was not intended, for that animal cannot elevate its trunk.-Voyage Pittoresque, etc., pp. 74, 100.

one circumstance, which, as respects the civilized nations of Mexico and Central America, seems to be decisive of the question. In the maps of the migrations of these nations, the first journey is generally represented, as having been made over some body of water; and indeed there does not appear to be a single well authenticated tradition among any aboriginal tribes, civilized or barbarous, of a passage by land, while many have preserved clear accounts of a prior event, the great deluge, which, in Mexico and Peru at least, is manifestly the same as recorded by Moses.

CHAPTER V.

ANCIENT NAVIGATION AND THE DRIFTING OF VESSELS.

THE proofs which exist, showing that our continent was peopled at a very early age, suggest an inquiry as to the maritime skill of the ancients. The high position attained by many of the primitive nations in various of the arts and sciences, and the extent to which commerce was prosecuted in very remote ages, render it improbable that the conquest of the ocean was never accomplished,—much less, that it was never attempted. Knowledge is not partial nor contracted in its influence; its impulses are sympathetic, and seek development in whatever direction the curiosity, the interests, or the enterprise of man affords an object. It would have been an anomaly, indeed, for the sciences of geometry and astronomy to have existed in so great perfection, without being applied to navigation. Besides, there are passages in the works of authors, sacred and profane, which it is contended by the learned, alluded to the magnet. Thus Plato speaks of the attractive powers of the Heraclian stone; Sanchoniatho says that Omanus contrived Botulian stones that moved as having life; and Homer, in lauding the maritime skill of the Pheacians, remarks of their vessels, that they sped to distant climes, through pathless seas, without the aid of pilots, and though "wrapt in clouds and darkness." The Rev. Mr. Maurice observes, that the magnet is referred to by the most ancient classical writers, under the name of Lapis He

raclius, in allusion to its asserted inventor, Hercules, and that "the Chaldeans and Arabians have immemorially made use of it, to guide them over the vast deserts, that overspread their respective countries."* M. Klaproth has traced the communication of the use of the magnetic needle in Europe, to the Arabs in the time of the crusades, and from the Arabs to the Chinese. The latter nation appears to have been acquainted with the attractive power of the loadstone at a remote date; and its property of communicating polarity to iron is noticed in a Chinese work finished A. D. 121, and in another work it is stated that ships were steered to the south by the magnet so early as A. D. 429. It is hardly possible that so valuable an invention should not have been communicated to the nations with which they had commercial intercourse; and it is singular that in the very quarter from which America, most probably, was peopled, -Eastern Asia,-this instrument should have been known and used, in ancient ages.

Independent, however, of these evidences respecting the knowledge of the compass, there are sufficient historical testimonies, to establish, that the ancients were not wholly ignorant of the art of navigation. That great inland sea, the Mediterranean, was traversed at an early period by the people living upon its borders, who not only achieved much in naval architecture, but performed long and arduous voyages. It has been clearly shown, that long before our era, the Canaries, Azores, the British islands, and probably the Baltic, were visited by the Carthagenians, and that Africa was circumnavigated by the

* Maurice's Ind. Antiq., vol. vi. p. 191. Hyde de Rel. Vet. Pers., p. 189, cited in ibid.

The Chinese, etc., by John F. Davis, vol. ii. p. 218.