Aboriginal Races of America [pp. 59-92]

Aboriginal Races of America.
from their characters or habitual example. These results
can be effected without making every well-disposed youth
subject to a system of of espionage, and without converting
College Tutors into work-house overseers.
J. G. M. G.
Baltimore, Md.
ART. III.-ABoRIGINAL RACES OF AMERICA.
1. Transactions of, the American Ethnological Society.
Vol. 1.
2. Notes on the Semi-Civilized Nations of Mexico, Yucatan,
and Central America. By ALBERT GALLATIN.
3. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. By E.
G. SQUIER, A. M., and E. H. DAVIS, M. D.
4. Catalogue of Skulls of Man and the Inferior Animals,
4Sc. By SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, author of "Crania
Americana," "Crania ]Egyptiaca," &c. Philadelphia:
1849.
THE Continent of America is often designated by the appellation of the New World, but the researches of modern
Geologists and Archeologists have shown that the evidences
in favour of a high antiquity for our geological epoch, as
well as for our Fauna and Flora, are, to say the least, quite
as great on this, as on the eastern hemisphere. Mr. Agassiz,
whose authority will hardly be questioned in matters of this
kind, tells us that geology finds the oldest landmarks here;
and Sir Charles Lyell, from a mass of well-digested facts,
and from the corroborating testimony of other good authorities, concludes that the Mississippi River has been running
in its present bed for more than one hundred thousand years.
The channel cut by the Niagara River, below the Falls, for
twelve miles, through solid rock, in the estimation of the same
distinguished author, as well as others, gives no less satisfac
* Second Visit to the United States. Part II., p. 188.
1853.]
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