size, and extending for many miles. One of the most celebrated of these large earthworks is in Ohio, and is known as Fort Ancient. Other hills have been fortified by high embankments of earth, or by walls of stone. A singular ancient stone fort was, a century ago, to be seen near Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire; other similar forts are known to exist in Indiana and Ohio, and all tell the story of ancient wars, long before the days of European colonization.

Strange record of a people passed away!

Once numerous as the leaves the forests shed,
As mindful of man's frailty and decay,

Upon their mounds, and grave hills of their dead.
Here lived, and planned, and toiled, another race,
A pre-historic race, forgotten long,

Who in the speech of men have left no trace,
Unknown alike to story and to song.

Yet were they to ourselves, as men, allied,

In God's own image made, though of the earth;
And, though the help of learning's stores denied,

Destined with us to an immortal birth;

With reverence may we ope their graves, and tread
With thoughtful minds the cities of the dead.

-Jones Very.*

The archæology and ethnology of America are not yet sufficiently well known to permit much safe generalization regarding the pre-historic races of the continent, though it has been abundantly proved that there were inhabitants, and, in many parts, dense populations, centuries before the continent became known to Europeans.

*This heretofore unpublished sonnet, entitled by the author "The Mound Builders," was written by the late Mr. Very in 1873, after reading The Pre-historic Races of the United States of America," by the late J. W. Foster, LL. D.

INTERIOR OF A ZUNI HOUSE.

MEXICAN REMAINS.

63

In Mexico the remains of an ancient civilization show that Mexicans had made considerable progress in culture, and when Cortes appeared in the country accurate information of his men, equipments and purposes were promptly communicated to Montezuma by a system of picture-writing. The progress in architecture is well authenticated by the testimony of the earliest adventurers, and the ruins in Southern Mexico and Yucatan sufficiently attest the same.

There is an extensive group of ruins at Uxmal which has attracted much attention. The buildings are very large, and many are ornamented with elaborate sculptures. If some of these buildings of stone were used as communal houses, as Mr. Morgan thinks, they would accommodate some six hundred to a thousand persons, living in the fashion practised by the Pueblos of New Mexico. At Zayi, like Uxmal in Yucatan, there is a ruin that was capable of accommodating more than two thousand persons. The Temple of the Sun in the city of Mexico is said to have been so large that five thousand priests were accommodated in it, besides which there was room for eight or ten thousand persons to dance in it on solemn festivals; but this must be taken with considerable allowance.

The most remarkable ruins of this sort are those found at Palenque in the Mexican State of Chiapas. This place appears to have been forgotten as long ago as the time that Cortes invaded the country, for he passed near it without mentioning its existence. It was discovered in 1750, but not explored until 1784, since which date the ruins have been several times visited and described, though they are yet to

be thoroughly investigated. They exhibit the greatest skill in architecture, carving in stone and designing displayed in the remains of the early Americans in either North or South America. The buildings are of massive stone work, and comprise extensive corridors, numerous courts, subterranean vaults, huge stone tablets covered with sculptures and hieroglyphics and ornamented with bas-reliefs. The intricacy and delicacy of the carved designs, the extent of the remains and the accuracy with which the whole is constructed, are astonishing when examined in drawings and photographs, and testify to an advance in the arts which is simply wonderful.

Lo, o'er the dense, black mass of giant trees,

The moon upsprings and sighs the midnight breeze:
Now looks Palenque - ruin on ruin piled —
August, yet spectral, beautiful, yet wild!

Such ruins give to New Mexico and Central America an interest not less than that of Egypt.

In South America we come to the remains of another people to whom the term Incas has generally been applied. The Spaniards exhausted their language in attempting to describe the wondrous architecture of the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. But besides this, Peru contains remains of extensive aqueducts, bridges and roads, and the most remarkable. remains of a former civilization to be found on the American continent are on Lake Titicaca, which lies about thirteen thousand feet above the sea, between Peru and Bolivia. On the islands in the lake are many ancient ruins of massive buildings of stone, and at the southern portion of the lake are the famous