knowledge whatever. There was no Latin translation of which he might have availed himself, earlier than 1549, while the oldest Italian version, that of Buonacciuoli, was not printed until 1562. According to Robertson, Columbus had completely matured his great plan so early as the year 1474, and communicated it to Paul, a distinguished physician of Florence, so that this illustrious navigator appears to be fairly entitled to the honour of having both conceived and executed that daring enterprise which led to the discovery of the new world.

VIII. There is an apparent coincidence between India and Peru, remarked by Sir William Jones, which is worth noticing; because, if well-founded, it would almost amount to a proof of a common origin between the two people, or a direct intercourse between the countries. The principal festival among the Peruvians was denominated Ramasitoa; and when we recollect that the Incas pretended to be the descendants of the sun, and find two Ramas among the ten Indian Avatars or Incarnations of Vishnu, and that the name of the wife of one of them is Sita, there certainly is some ground for supposing that the word Ramasitoa combines the names of Rama and Sita. (Jones, 3-39.)

IX. The article on the Life of Jefferson, in the fifty-first volume of the Edinburgh Review, contains the following interesting piece of information: "Jefferson had collected at one time fifty vocabularies of the aboriginal tribes within his reach, extending to about 250 words; of these, about 73 words were common to the Asiatic lists of 130 words collected by Pallas. A comparison of languages seems the only chance of furnishing something like a key among the hundred theories concerning the origin of the Indian tribes. But there was also a stimulating encouragement in the suspicion Jefferson entertained, that farther investigations would show a greater number of radical languages among the natives of America, than among those of the other hemisphere." I have not been able to meet with Pallas's list of 130 words; but if, as I

suppose, they were all collected among the subjects of Russia, in the north-eastern countries of Asia, and if 73 words, out of the 250 Indian words collected by Jefferson, coincided with them, and if, further, the degree of this coincidence was so close as to be obvious to the eyes of a common observer, as well as to those of an etymologist, which, like the eyes of a lover are not to be implicitly relied on, as they perceive what no one else can discover, and see "Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," it appears to me, that the question as to the origin of the North American tribes is set at rest, and that there can hardly be a doubt that they migrated from the North-east of Asia.

x. The following passage from Dr. Prichard's valuable work on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations is deserving of an attentive perusal :-"Philologists have sought in vain in the old continent for a nation from whose speech the diversified idioms of America may with any degree of probability be derived; but an examination of the American languages themselves has led to some interesting results. The native races of North America are referred, by a classification of their dialects, to a few great divisions, several of which extend as radii, issuing from a common centre in the north-western part of the continent, where it is divided from Asia by Behring's Straits. The traditions prevalent among

the ancient Mexicans seem to have derived credit from the discovery of a chain of mountains, extending almost from New Mexico to Mount St. Elias, in the neighbourhood of the Esquimaux Tschugazzi; their languages, particularly those of the Ugalyachmutzi and Koluschians, bear a curious analogy to that of the Aztecs and Tlaxcallans. Another series of nations, the Karalit or Esquimaux, connected by affinities of dialect, has been traced from the settlements of the Tschuklschi in Asia along the polar zone to Acadia and Greenland. Light has also been thrown in a similar manner on the history of the Lenni Lenape, and the great kindred family of the Algonquin nations, on that of the Iroquois, and likewise of the Floridian and other races of North

America, by a comparison of their national traditions with the indications discovered in their dialects. One circumstance, which is perhaps of more importance than all the preceding, is the singular congruity in structure between all the American languages, from the northern to the southern extremity of the continent." (Prichard, pages 5 and 6.)

XI. One of the most interesting and apparently authentic notices of the languages of the North American Indians I have ever met with, is contained in the following extract from a work of Dr. Jonathan Edwards, entitled "Observations on the Language of the Muhhekaniew Indians, communicated to the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences," published at the request of the Society, and printed by Josiah Meigs, 1788. Dr. Edwards, who was pastor of a church in New-Haven, gives the following account :-"When I was but six years of age my father removed with his family to Stockbridge, which at that time was inhabited by Indians almost solely. The Indians being the nearest neighbours I constantly associated with them; their boys were my daily school-mates and play-fellows. Out of my father's house I seldom heard any language spoken beside the Indian. By these means I acquired the knowledge of that language, and a great facility in speaking it: it became more familiar to me than my mother tongue. I knew the names of some things in Indian which I did not know in English. Even all my thoughts ran in Indian; and though the true pronunciation of the language is extremely difficult to all but themselves, they acknowledged that I had acquired it perfectly; which, as they said, had never been acquired before by any Anglo-American.

"The language which is now the subject of observation is that of the Muhhekaniew or Stockbridge Indians. They, as well as the tribe at New London, are by the Anglo-Americans called Mohegans. The language is spoken by all the Indians throughout New England. Every tribe, as that of Stockbridge, of Farmington, of New London, &c., has a different dialect; but the language is radically the same. Mr.

Elliot's translation of the Bible is in a particular dialect of this language. This language appears to be much more extensive than any other in North America. The language of the Delawares in Pennsylvania; of the Penobscots bordering on Nova Scotia; of the Indians of St. Francis in Canada; of the Shawanese on the Ohio; and of the Chippewaus at the westward of Lake Huron; are all radically the same with the Mohegan. The same is said concerning the languages of the Ottowans, Nanticooks, Munsees, Menomonees, Messisaugas, Saukies, Ottagaumies, Killistinoes, Nipegons, Algonkins, Winnebagoes, &c. That the languages of the several tribes in New England, of the Delawares, and of Mr. Elliot's Bible, are radically the same with the Mohegan, I assert from my own knowledge."

The extract concludes with the following very important remark, which throws more light on the nature and formation of language, than can be collected from many treatises called philosophical, contained in ponderous folios.

"THE MOHEGANS HAVE NO ADJECTIVES IN ALL THEIR LANGUAGE. Although it may at first sight seem not only singular and curious, but impossible, that a language should exist without adjectives, yet it is an indubitable fact." (Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 461.)

Of the fact itself I have not the smallest doubt, and believe it may be very easily and satisfactorily accounted for. The reason I conceive to be, that not only in the language of the Mohegans, but in that of all other people that ever existed, nouns substantive were originally descriptive of the nature and qualities of the objects to which they were applied, and that it was not until the primary meaning of proper names was lost in the progress, or confusion, of language, that adjectives became necessary; and that in all languages at present, when used with most propriety and correctness, they answer no other purpose than to enumerate or recapitulate the qualities, or in other words to restore the lost signification of the noun to which they are attached, for exemplifications of which I must refer to the chapter on adjectives.

XII. During several years past, the remains of architecture and sculpture, discovered in various parts of South America, have induced many to come to the conclusion that they prove the existence of a people who had made greater advances in the arts than the Mexicans and Peruvians. I can discover no adequate grounds for such an opinion; but should it be well founded, the probability is, that some inscriptions in alphabetical characters will be found, which will enable us to conjecture, with more confidence, to what quarter of Asia we are to look for the original colonisers of the New World.