CHAPTER XIV.
AMERICA.
If this work had any pretension to being a complete history or statistical account of the Rude Monuments of the world, it might be necessary to describe somewhat in detail, and to illustrate those of the New World as well as those of the Old. In the form that it has now taken, however, nothing more is required than to point out as briefly as possible what the American monuments really are, with sufficient detail to show whether they have or have not any connexion with those we have been describing, and to point out what bearing — if any — their peculiarities may have on the main argument of this work.
In so far as the rude monuments of North America are concerned, there is fortunately no difficulty in speaking with confidence. In the first volume of the 'Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge,'[1] the Americans possess a detailed description of their antiquities of this class such as no nation in Europe can boast of. The survey was carefully and scientifically carried out by Messrs. Squier and Davis, to whom it was entrusted. The text is tersely and clearly written, mere theories or speculations are avoided, and the plates are clearly and carefully engraved. If we had such a work on our own antiquities we should long ago have known all about them; but unfortunately there are no Smithsons in this country, and among our thousand and one millionaires, to whom the expense would be a flea-bite, there is not one who has the knowledge requisite to enable him to appreciate the value of such a survey, nor consequently the liberality sufficient to induce him to incur the expense necessary for its execution.
- ↑ 'Ancient Monuments in the Mississippi Valley;' Philadelphia, 1847.
