Transcriber’s Note
A number of typographical errors have been maintained in this version ofthis book. They are marked and the corrected text is shown in the popup.A description of the errors is found in the list at the end of the text.Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been maintained. A listof inconsistently spelled and hyphenated words is found at the end ofthe text.
SECOND EDITION,
Corrected, enlarged and with some additions,
BY C. S. RAFINESQUE, A. M.—Ph. D.
Professor of Historical and Natural Sciences,Member of many Learned Societies inPhiladelphia, New York, Lexington, Cincinnatti,Nashville, Paris, Bordeaux, Brussels,Bonn, Vienna, Zurich, Naples &c., the AmericanAntiquarian Society, the Northern AntiquarianSociety of Copenhagen &c.
The massive ruins the arts and skill unfold
Of busy workers, and their styles reveal,
The objects and designs of such devisers:
In silent voices they speak, to thinking minds
They teach, who were the human throngs that left
Uplifted marks for witness of past ages.
PHILADELPHIA
1838.
Printed for the Author.
This Essay or Introduction to my Researches on the Antiquities andMonuments of North and South America, was printed in September 1838 inthe first Number of the American Museum of Baltimore, a literary monthlyperiodical undertaken by Messrs. Brooks and Snodgrass, as a new seriesof the North American Quarterly Magazine. Being printed in a hurry andat a distance several material errors occured, which are nowrectified, and this second edition will form thereby the Introduction tomy long contemplated Work on the Ancient Monuments of this continent: towhich I alluded in my work on the Ancient Nations of America publishedin 1836. I will add some notes or additions thereto, and maygradualy publish my original descriptions and views, plans, maps&c., of such as I have surveyed, examined and studied between 1818 andthis time; comparing them with those observed by others in America orelsewhere of the same character—such works are of a national importanceor interest, and ought to be patronized by the States or LearnedSocieties, or wealthy patriots; but if there is little prospect of theirdoing so, I must either delay or curtail the publication of theinteresting materials collected for 20 years past.
The feelings that lead some men to investigate remains of antiquity andsearch into their origin, dates and purposes, are similar to thoseactuating lofty minds, when not satisfied with the surface of things,they inquire into the source and origin of every thing accessible tohuman ken, and scrutinize or