period of their origin supposed by the 'hypothesis' already mentioned and some three thousand years since, would be altogether more in accordance with their ruins. The Tultiques were evidently the first people known in Mexican history; but from whence they came, and the date of their first establishment in Central America, is unknown. Humboldt himself says, 'We do not know on what authority these dates are founded.' We shall speak of the people here mentioned as the Toultecs, and as entirely distinct from the ancient inhabitants of Palenque, though we have designated the latter by a similar name, for the sake of preserving cöincidence with others. All must be agreed, in accordance with our statement, and with Humboldt, that a people existed in Anahuac long previous to the appearance of these Toultecs we now speak of, though this distinguished traveller had no knowledge of the great ruins of Palenque.

The history of the Toultecs, like that of all the nations which have subsequently peopled Central America, is involved in fable. It is said, however, that their history relates that they were banished from their own country of Huehuetapallan, in their year 1, (Teepatl,) which is likewise said to correspond with our year 596; that proceeding southerly, under the direction of their chiefs, they arrived, after sojourning at various places on the way, for the space of one hundred and twenty-four years, on the banks of a river, where they built a city, and called it Tollan, or Tula, which, as Clavigero thinks, was the name of the kingdom they had left, situated north-west of Mexico. This then was the oldest, as it was one of the most celebrated cities in the history of Mexico, and the capital of the Toultec kingdom. This kingdom lasted three hundred and eighty-four years, which was divided into cycles of fifty-two years each; and each cycle was occupied by the reign of one king. Seven kings had thus ruled the people, when, during the twenty-eighth year of the reign of the eighth monarch, the nation was destroyed by a pestilence. If a monarch died during one of these cycles, the government was administered by the nobles. Tradition, as well also as the paintings of this people, beside Tollan and Huehuetapallan, mention Aztlan as their first residence. This fact, in connection with the remaining arts of a numerous and highly civilized people, now found in Wisconsin Territory, and near St. Louis, Missouri, have given rise to the opinion that there was their first residence. It has been contended that the Castine Ground, in the vicinity of that city, was the identical Aztlan of the wandering Toultec nation. We shall hereafter refer to the facts which induced us to announce in our first numbers that a connection existed between the inhabitants of Mexico and the original people of the western valleys of the United States.

The Toultecs, as has already been said, exhibited a high state of civilization, and an astonishing knowledge of the arts and sciences, at the earliest periods of their history. Their government was the most permanent, efficient, and happy; and to them have all succeeding nations acknowledged their indebtedness for their knowledge of the arts, and of agriculture. They were familiar with the working of metals, cutting gems, with hieroglyphical paintings, etc.; and in their divisions of time, they were much more perfect than the Greeks or Romans. 'But where,' inquires a distinguished writer, 'is the source of that cultivation? Where is the country from which the Toultecs and Mexicans issued?' If we have no evidence that they came from the United States, nor from Asia, is not the query solved, by supposing that they were the Palencians? dispersed by the pestilence which deprived them of their eighth and last monarch, with the bulk of the Toultec people. The magnificent arts still presented to the curious traveller in Mexico, are the work of this people, and they exhibit a degree of skill, industry, and intellect, which astonish those of our times. But they differed from all others in these arts. Where then shall we find their analogue? Did they come from China, as De Guignes would prove from the Chinese annals, subsequent to 458? Horn, in his 'De Originibus Americanis,' and M. Scherver, would make this by no means difficult, nay, extremely probable. They 'might have been a part of those Hiongnoux, who, according to the Chinese historians, emigrated under Punon, and were lost in the north of Siberia; or, were they the Indians of North America? The pastoral character of the Toultecs resembled that of the Asiatics, and their arts those of Egypt; but they cultivated no other gramina than maize, while the Asiatic tribes cultivated various cereal gramina, at the earliest periods of their history. To the Chinese, and particularly the Japanese, they bore a striking similarity, so far as regards the state of civilization; yet, in their facial and cranial characteristics, they differed materially. On the whole, it is much more reasonable to suppose that the people of whom we are now speaking, were of the Mongol race, than that the Palencians were any particular race now known.

Whether the last mentioned people, after their dispersion from their great capital in the province of Chiapa, were or were not the nucleus around which the many distinct tribes that afterward constituted the people of the great Mexican empire, all our inquiries are unable clearly to establish; still, there are strong evidences in favor of that opinion. Hence the name Tultecan, by which we have designated the primeval inhabitants of this continent, and the authors of the extensive arts, the ruins of which have been noticed, may be identical with the Toultecs. All agree that there was a race of people existing for an unknown period of time in Central America before the Toultecs, the Aztecs, or the Chichimecas appeared in the beautiful Mexican valley. This agreement, in connection with the antique relics found on the site of the famous Palencian city, and the indisputable evidences of the superior knowledge of the ancient Palenquans, renders the conclusion to which we have arrived inevitable.

It is also extremely probable, from the analogy observed among the arts of succeeding inhabitants of Mexico, the similarity of their manners and customs, and their knowledge of the arts and sciences, in which the original Tultecans were so highly distinguished, that a part of the latter people, after the destruction of their great capital, was united with the former. This probability, though unnoticed by writers upon the early inhabitants of Mexico, amounts, in our mind, to conviction. It forms a basis to the only conclusion which presents itself in attempting to explain the origin of the extraordinary arts now found throughout the Mexican valley, and in other parts of that once extensive empire. The inference is not less conclusive in relation to the people with whom the original Tultiques became united, and with whom they in part constituted the subsequent great nation of Mexicans. This people were clearly the previous inhabitants of our own western states. Their arts are distinctly traced from Wisconsin and Missouri Territories, all the way into the valley of Mexico. Among those which now characterize that valley, are to be seen numerous specimens so closely resembling the relics of the United States, that no other inference can be drawn from the fact, than that they were the work of the same people. Still, it will be observed that others exist in Mexico, which as plainly show the existence of a distinct and peculiar class of men. The most remarkable of these are found among the ruins of Palenque, Copan, and at other places in the province of Chiapa, Yucatan, and Guatemala. Others again exist, scattered throughout both Peru and Mexico, among the Pacific Islands, and west of the Rocky Mountains, which