languages.

Language is itself so irrefragable a testimony of the mental affinities of nations, and so slow in the periods of its mutations, that it offers one of the most important means for studying the history of the people. Grammars and vocabularies are required of all the tribes, whose history and relations we seek to fathom, before we can successfully compare them with each other, and with foreign languages. It is a study of high interest, from the diversity and curious principles of the dialects. There is a general agreement in the principles of Indian utterance, while their vocabularies exhibit wide variances. Some of the concords required, are anomalous to the occidental grammars, while there is a manifest general resemblance to these ancient plans of thought. The most curious features consist in the personal forms of the verbs, the constant provision for limiting the action to specific objects, the submergence of gender in many cases into two great organic and inorganic classes of nature, marked by vitality or inertia, and the extraordinary power of syllabical combination, by which Indian lexicography is rendered so graphic and descriptive in the bestowal of names. They are all, or nearly all, transpositive and polysynthetic; yet although now found in a very concrete form, this appears to have been not their original form, but rather the result of the progress of syllabical accretion, from a few limited roots and particles, which are yet when dissected found to be monosyllabic. That they have incorporated some of the Hebrew pronouns, and while like this language, wanting the auxiliary verb to be, have preserved its solemn causative verb, for existence, are among the points of the philology to be explained. But I have not time to pursue this subject. Even these notices are made at the sacrifice of other and perhaps more generally interesting traits of their antiquity.

The Astronomy of the American tribes, has been thought to merit attention, in any attempts to compare them with foreign nations. The evidences of the attainments of the ancient Mexicans in this science, as well as the facts of their general history, chronology and languages, have been examined by the venerable archæologist and ex-statesman, who presides over this society, in a critical dissertation, published by the American Ethnological Society, which is the ablest paper of the age. The results of Mr. Gallatin's labors, and his reading of the ancient scrolls of Mexican picture writing, preserved in the folios of Lord Kingsborough, while they limit the amount of precise historical information in these unique records to very narrow grounds, yet denote a degree of system and exactitude, both in their chronology and astronomy, which are very remarkable.

The simple astronomy of our Aonic tribes of the north, gave them a lunar year, consisting of twelve moons. They consequently had a year of about three hundred and sixty days. As they had no names for days, no week and no subperiods of a moon, but noticed and relied simply on the moon's phases, they did not become acquainted with the necessity of intercalations for the true length of the year. The Aztecs of Mexico, on the contrary, had a solar year, and had made an extraordinary advance in computing the true time. Their year consisted of eighteen months, of twenty days each, a perfectly arbitrary system. This division would give but three hundred and sixty days to the year. The remaining five were called empty or superfluous days, and were added to the last month of the eighteen. A tropical year is, however, about six hours longer than three hundred and sixty-five days, and by throwing away six hours annually, there would be an entire day lost every four years. The Mexican astronomers were well aware of this fact; but instead of supplying the deficiency every fourth year as we do, they disregarded it entirely, till a whole cycle consisting of fifty-two years was completed, and then they intercalated thirteen days, to make up the time and complete their cycle. In this way they came to the same result as the Egyptians, but by a different process, since the Egyptian calendar was founded on a computation of twelve lunar months of thirty days each. It was precisely the same in the old Persian calendar, which consisted of a year of three hundred and sixty days, made up of twelve months of thirty days each.

The Aztecs divided their cycle of fifty two years, into four periods of thirteen years; called Tlalpilli, and their month of twenty days, into four sub-periods, or weeks, of five days. The cycle was called Xiuhmolpilli, which signifies, "the tying up of years." Each day of the month had a separate name, derived from some animate, or inanimate object, as Tochtli, a rabbit, Calli, a house, Atl, water, Tecpatl, Silex, Xochitl, a flower, Cohuatl, a serpent. The fifth day, was a fair or market day. The names of the days were represented by hieroglyphic figures of the objects described. The divisions were perfect and regular, and enabled them to denote, in their scrolls of picture writing, the chronology of the month, and of the Tlalpilli, or period of thirteen years.¹⁰

The scheme itself denotes, not only a very certain mode of keeping the record of time, but a very exact knowledge of the tropical year. It is now known that the length of the year is precisely three hundred and sixty five days, five hours, forty eight minutes, and forty eight seconds; and it is perfectly well ascertained, that the Aztecs computed its length, at the period of their highest advance, at three hundred and sixty five days, five hours, forty six minutes, and nine seconds, differing only two minutes and thirty nine seconds from our own computation.¹¹ There is evidence, indeed, that the ancient inhabitants of this continent, had more science, than is generally conceded. If we are to credit writers, the Aztecs understood the true causes of eclipses, as well as we do. Diagrams exist, in their pictorial records, in which the earth is represented as projecting its disc upon the moon—thus indicating, clearly, a true knowledge of this phenomenon. Mr. Gallatin remarks that the Indian astronomical system, as developed in Mexico, is not one of indigenous origin, but that they had, manifestly, received it, at least their calendar, from a foreign source. Its results could not have been attained without long and patient observations. Some of its methods of combination, in the double use of names and figures, in their cycles, are thought to denote an ancient primitive system of oriental astronomy, reaching back to the earliest times. Here, then, we have one probable fact to serve as the nucleus of antiquarian testimony. We begin it abroad.

The architecture of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, has been illustrated, within a few years, by several elaborate works; and the subject may be deemed to have been brought, by these works, within the scope of study and comparison. There are two features in this unique order of architecture, which appear to denote great antiquity in the principles developed, namely, the arch and the pyramid. These nations appear to have had the use of squares and parallelograms, in their geometry, without circles, or parabolic lines. The only form of the arch observed, is that called the cyclopean arch, which is made by one course of stones overlapping another, till the two walls meet, and a flat stone covers the space. This is the earliest type of the arch known among mankind, and is believed to be more ancient than the foundation of any city in Europe.

The pyramid, as developed in the temple of the sun at Tezcuco,