to be near the ancient mines, it is not improbable that the conquerors in these, as in many other instances, drove out the rightful owners, and took possession for themselves;12-† for that they did possess and inhabit the towns above enumerated is a fact beyond question.

Why may not events of an analogous character have taken place at Panuco? Was it not probably an Indian city into which the Spaniards had intruded themselves, and having left traces of their sojourn, as at La Gran Quivira, subsequently, owing to some dire catastrophe, or some new impulse, abandonded it for another and preferable location? This, we suggest, is a reasonable explanation of the presence of the Caucasian effigy found by Mr. Norman among the deserted ruins of Panuco.

Mr. Stephens has, I think, conclusively proved that the past and present Indian races of Mexico were cognate tribes. I had previously arrived at the same conclusion from a different kind of evidence. What was manifest in the physical man is corroborated by his archæological remains. The reiterated testimony of some of the early Spanish travellers, and especially of Bernal Diaz and Herrera, is of the utmost importance to this question; and all that is necessary in the chain of evidence, is some link to connect the demi-civilized nations with the present uncultivated and barbarous tribes. These links have been supplied by Mr. Gregg. Those peculiar dwellings and other structures, with inclined or parapet walls,12-‡ and with or without windows, which are common to all epochs of Peruvian and Mexican architecture, are constructed and occupied by the Indians of Mexico even at the present day. After describing the general character of these modern domicils, Mr. Gregg goes on to observe, that “a very curious feature in these buildings, is that there is most generally no direct communication between the street and the lower rooms, into which they descended from a trap-door from the upper story, the latter being accessible by means of a ladder. Even the entrance at the upper stories is frequently at the roof. This style of building appears to have been adopted for security against their marauding neighbors of the wilder tribes, with whom they were often at war.

“Though this was their most usual style of architecture, there still exists a Pueblo of Taos, composed, for the most part, of but two edifices of very singular structure—one on each side of a creek, and formerly communicating by a bridge. The base story is a mass of near four hundred feet long, a hundred and fifty wide, and divided into numerous apartments, upon which other tiers of rooms are built, one above another, drawn in by regular grades, forming a pyramidal pile of fifty or sixty feet high, and comprising some six or eight stories. The outer rooms only seem to be used for dwellings, and are lighted by little windows at the sides, but are entered through trap-doors in the azoteas or roofs. Most of the inner apartments are employed as granaries and storerooms, but a spacious hall in the centre of the mass, known as the estufa, is reserved for their secret councils. These two buildings afford habitation, as is said, for over six hundred souls. There is likewise an edifice in the Pueblo of Picuris of the same class, and some of those of Moqui are also said to be similar.”13-*

The Indian city of Santo Domingo, which has an exclusive aboriginal population, is built in the same manner, the material being, as usual, sun-burnt bricks; and my friend Dr. Wm. Gambel informs me, that in a late journey from Santa Fé across the continent to California, he constantly observed an analogous style of building, as well in the dwellings of the present native inhabitants, as in those older and abandoned structures of whose date little or nothing is known.

Who does not see in the builders of these humbler dwellings, the descendants of the architects of Palenque, and Yucatan? The style is the same in both. The same objects have been arrived at by similar modes of construction. The older structures are formed of a better material, generally of hewn stone, and often elaborately ornamented with sculpture. But the absence of all decoration in the modern buildings, is no proof that they have not been erected by people of the same race with those who have left such profusely ornamented monuments in other parts of Mexico; for the ruins of Pueblo Bonito, in the direction of Navajo, and those of the celebrated Casas Grandes on the western Colorado, which were regarded by Clavigero as among the oldest Toltecan remains in Mexico, are destitute of sculpture or other decoration. In fact, these last named ruins appear to date with the primitive wanderings of the cultivated tribes, before they established their seats in Yucatan and Guatimala, and erected those more finished monuments which could only result from the combined efforts of populous communities, acting under the favorable influence of peace and prosperity. Every race has had its center or centers of comparative civilization. The American aborigines had theirs in Peru, Bogota and Mexico. The people, the institutions and the architecture were essentially the same in each, though modified by local wants and conventional usages. Humboldt was forcibly impressed by this archæological identity, for he himself had traced it, with occasional interruptions, over an extent of a thousand leagues; and we now find that it gradually merges itself into the ruder dwellings of the more barbarous tribes; showing, as I have often remarked, that there is, in every respect, a gradual ethnographic transition from these into the temple-builders of every American epoch.14-*

I shall close this communication by a notice of certain discoidal stones occasionally found in the mounds of the United States. Of these relics I possess sixteen, of which all but two were found by my friend Dr. Wm. Blanding, during his long residence in Camden, South Carolina. These disks were accompanied, as usual, by earthern vessels, pipes of baked clay, arrow-heads and other articles, respecting which Dr. Blanding has given me the following locality:—“All the Indian relics, save three or four, which I have sent you, were collected on or near the banks of the Wateree river, Kershaw district, South Carolina; the greater part from the mounds or near the foot of them. All the mounds that I have observed in this state, excepting these, do not amount to as many as are found on the Wateree within the distance of twenty four miles up and down the river, between Lancaster and Sumpter districts. The lowest down is called Nixon’s mound, the highest up, Harrison’s.”

“The discoidal stones,” adds Dr. Blanding, “were found at the foot of the different mounds, not in them. They seemed to be left, where they were no doubt used, on the play grounds.”

The disks are from an inch and a half to six inches in diameter, and present some varieties in other respects.