the Mexican teocalli, and the Aonic mounds of North America, compose a form of architecture equally ancient; which can be traced back over the plains of Asia, to the period of the original dispersion of mankind. The temple of Belus, was but a vast pyramid, raised for the worship of Bel. Originating in the Hamitic tribes, in the alluvial vallies and flat-lands of Asia Minor, a perfect infatuation, on the subject, appears to have possessed the early oriental nations, and they carried the idea into the valley of the Nile, and, indeed, wherever they went. It appeared to be the substitute of idolatrous nations, on alluvial lands, for an isolated hill, or promontory. It was at such points that Baal and Bel were worshipped, and hence the severe injunctions of the sacred volume, on the worship established in the oriental world "on high places." Such was the position of the pyramids in the vallies of the Euphrates and the Nile, and the idea appears to have reached America without any deviation whatever in its relative position, or its general design. It was every were, throughout America, as we find it, in the vallies of Mexico and the Mississippi, erected in rich and level vallies, or plains, and dedicated to idolatrous worship.

The mound builders of North America, north of the tropical latitudes, appear like bad copyists of a sublime original. They retained the idea of the oriental pyramid, but being no mechanics constructed piles of earth to answer the ancient purpose, both of worship and interment. Our largest structures of this kind, are the mound of Grave Creek in Western Virginia, containing about three millions of cubic feet, and the great group of the Monks of La Trappe in Illinois, estimated at seven millions of cubic feet.¹² Those of Saint Louis, mount Joliet, and the Blue mounds respectively are now known to be of geological origin.

But the Mexican and South American tribes built more boldly, and have left several specimens of the pyramids, which deserve to be mentioned, as well from the evidences they afford of mechanical skill, as from their magnificent proportions, and their Nilotic power of endurance. The pyramid of Cholula, in the valley of Mexico, exists in three vast steps, retreating as they ascend, the highest of which was crowned with a temple, whose base was one hundred and seventy-seven feet above the plain. This is nine feet higher than that of Myrcerinus, the third of the great group of Ghiza on the Nile; but its base of one thousand four hundred and twenty-three feet, exceeds that of any edifice of the kind found by travellers in the old world, and is double that of Cheops. To realize a clear idea of its magnitude, we may imagine a solid structure of earth, bricks and stone, which would fill the Washington parade ground, squared by its east and west lines, and rising seventy-five feet above the turrets of the New York University.

The pyramids of the empire of the Incas are not less remarkable. There are at Saint Juan Teotihuacan, near lake Tezcuco, in the Mexican valley, two very large antique pyramids, which were consecrated by the ancient inhabitants to the Sun and Moon. The largest, called Tonatiuh Ytzalqual, or the House of the Sun, has a base of two hundred and eight metres, or six hundred and eighty-two English feet in length, and fifty-five metres or one hundred and eighty feet perpendicular elevation; being three feet higher than the great pyramid of Cholula. The other, called Meztu Ytzaqual, or House of the Moon, is thirty-six feet lower, and has a lesser base. These monuments, according to the first accounts, were erected by the most ancient tribes, and were the models of the Aztec Teocalli. The faces of these pyramids are within fifty-two seconds, exactly north and south and east and west. Their interior consists of massive clay and stone. This solid nucleus is covered by a kind of porous amygdaloid, called tetzontli. They are ascended by steps of hewn stone to their pinnacles, where tradition affirms, there were anciently statues covered with thin lamina of gold. And it was on these sublime heights, with the clear tropical skies of Mexico above them, that the Toltec magi lit the sacred fire upon their altars, offered up incense, and chanted hymns.

One fact in connexion with these ancient structures is remarkable, on account of its illustrative character of the use of our small mounds. Around the base of these pyramids, there were found numerous smaller pyramids, or cones of scarcely nine or ten metres—twenty-nine to thirty feet elevation, which were dedicated to the stars. These minor elevations, were generally arranged at right angles. They furnished also places of sepulture for their distinguished chiefs, and hence the avenue leading through them, was called Micoatl, or Road of the Dead. We have in this arrangement a hint of the object of the numerous small mounds, which generally surround the large mounds in the Mississippi valley—as may be witnessed in the remarkable group of La Trappe, in Illinois. A similar arrangement, indeed, prevails in the smaller series of the leading mound groups west of the Alleghanies. They may be called Star-mounds. If this theory be correct, we have not only a satisfactory explanation of the object of the smaller groups, which has heretofore puzzled inquirers; but the presence of such groups may be taken as an evidence of the wide spread worship of the Sun, at an early period in these latitudes.

Sun-worship existed extensively in North America as well as South. There is reason to believe that the ancestors of all the principal existing tribes in America, worshipped an Eternal Fire. Both from their records and traditions, as well as their existing monuments, this deduction is irresistible. Not only the Olmecs and Toltecs, who built the temples of the sun and moon, near the lake of Tezcuco—not only the Auricaneans, who obeyed the voice of the First Inca, in erecting the temple of the Sun at the foot of the Andes; but the Aztecs, even at the later and more corrupted period of their rites, adhered strongly to this fundamental rite. It is to be traced from the tropical latitudes into the Mississippi valley, where the earth-mound it is apprehended, rudely supplied the place of its more gorgeous, southern prototype. When they had raised the pile of earth as high as their means and skill dictated, facts denote that they erected temples and altars at its apex. On these altars, tradition tells us, they burned the tobacco plant, which maintains its sacred character unimpaired to the present day. From the traditions which are yet extant in some of the tribes, they regarded the sun as the symbol of Divine Intelligence. They paid him no human sacrifices, but offered simply incense, and dances and songs. They had an order of priesthood, resembling the ancient magi, who possessed the highest influence and governed the destinies of the tribes. It is past all doubt that Manco Capac, was himself one of these magi: and it is equally apparent, that the order exists at this day, although shorn of much of its ancient, external splendor, in the solemn metais, and sacrificial jossakeeds, who sway the simple multitudes in the North American forests. Among these tribes, the graphic Ke-ke-win, which depicts the Sun, stands on their pictorial rolls, as the symbol of the Great Spirit; and no important rite or ceremony is undertaken without an offering of tobacco. This weed is lit with the sacred element, generated anew on each occasion, from percussion. To light and to put out this fire, is the symbolic language for the opening and closing of every important civil or religious public transaction, and it is the most sacred rite known to them. It is never done without an appeal, which has the characteristics of prayer, to the Great Spirit. To find in America, a system of worship which existed in