among polished nations. The suit of servants stood in a row with their backs against the wall. This is an eastern fashion. While the cacique was at dinner, he happened to sneeze, on which the attendants respectfully bowed. This too was an ancient eastern usage. After the repast was finished, the servants all dined in another hall. The meat was well cooked, the fish properly roasted or broiled.

They had the knowledge of dressing furs with neatness, and deer skins were prepared with softness and delicacy, with which they clothed themselves.

The principal pride and grandeur of this people, however, consisted in their temple, which stood in the town of Talomeco, which was also the sepulchre of their caciques or chiefs.

The temple was a hundred paces long, which is eighteen rods, and forty wide, which is seven rods and eight feet. Its doors were wide in proportion to its length. The roof was thatched neatly with split twigs, and built sloping to throw off the rain. It was thickly decorated with different sized shells, connected together in festoons, which shine beautifully in the sun.

On entering the temple, there are twelve wooden statues of gigantic size, with menacing and savage faces, the tallest of which was eight feet high. They held in their hands, in a striking posture, clubs, adorned with copper. Some have copper hatchets, edged with flint; others had bows and arrows, and some held long pikes, pointed with copper.

The Spaniards thought these statues worthy of the ancient Romans. On each of the four sides of the temple, there was two rows of statues, the size of life; the upper row of men with arms in their hands; the lower row of women. The cornice in the temple was ornamented with large shells mingled with pearls, and festoons.

The corpses of these caciques were so well embalmed that there was no bad smell; they were deposited in large wooden coffers, well constructed, and placed upon benches two feet from the ground.

In smaller coffers and in baskets, the Spaniards found the clothes of the deceased men and women; and so many pearls, that they distributed them among the officers and soldiers by handfulls. The. prodigious quantity of pearls; the heaps of colored chamois or goat

skins; clothes of marten and other well dressed furs; the thick, well made targets of twigs, ornamented with pearls; and other things found in this temple and its magazines, which consisted of eight halls of equal maguitude, made even the Spaniards who had been in Peru, admire this as the wonder of the new world.

The remains of cities and towns of an ancient population, exists every where on the coast of the Pacific, which agree in fashion with the works and ruins found along the Chinese coasts, exactly west from the western limits of North America, showing beyond all dispute, that in ancient times the countries were known to each other, and voyages were reciprocally made.

The style of their shipping was such as to be equal to voyages of that distance, and also sufficient to withstand stress of weather, even beyond vessels of the present times, on account of their great depth of keel and size.

The Chinese ships have a single deck, below the space of which is divided into a great number of cabins, some times not less than sixty, affording accommodations for as many merchants, with their servants.

They have a good helm, some of the larger ships have besides the cabin, thirteen bulk-heads, or divisions, in the hold, formed of thick planks mortised together. The object of this is to guard against springing a leak, if they strike on a rock, or should be struck by a whale, which not unfrequently occurs.

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By this plan, if an accident did happen, only one of the division could be effected; the whole vessel was double planked, laid over the first planking; and so large were some of these vessels as to require a crew of three hundred sailors to manage them when at sea. See Marco Polo, Book 3d., chap. 1, and note 1128— Rankin. In the year A. D. 1275, the Tartars, under their general, called Moko, undertook the invasion of the Japan empire, which lies along adjacent to China, between the western coast of North America and China, with a fleet of 4000 sail, having on board two hundred and forty thousand men.

But the expedition proved unsuccessful, as it was destroyed by a storm, driven and scattered about the Pacific ocean.-Kempfer's History of Japan-Rankin.

From this we discover the perfect ability of the western nations, that is, west of America, to explore the ocean, as suited their in

clinations, in the earliest ages; for we are not to suppose the Tartars had just then, in 1275, come to a knowledge of navigation, but rather, the greatness of this fleet is evidence, that the art had arrived to its highest state of perfection.

But had they a knowledge of the compass? This is an important enquiry. On this subject we have the following from the pen of the most learned antiquarian of the age, C. S. Rafinesque, whose writings we have several times alluded to in the course of this work.

This author says, that in the year of the world 1200, or 2800 years before Christ, or 450 years before the flood, the magnetic needle was known and in use, and that under the Emperor Hoangti, which was about 130 years nearer the time of the flood, reckoning from the creation, ships began to be invented: He even gives the names of two ship builders, Kong-ku and Ho-ahu, who, by order of the above named Emperor, built boats, at first with hollow trees, and furnished them with oars, and were sent to explore places where no man had ever been.

In the year 2037 before Christ, or 307 years after the flood, under the Hia dynasty, embassies were sent to China from foreigu countries, beyond sea, who came in ships to pay homage to the Hias, or Emperor.

If a knowledge of the magnet, and its adaptation to navigation, was known before the flood, as appears from this writer's remarks, who derives this discovery from a perusal of the Chinese histories; it was, of necessity, divulged by Noah to his immediate posterity, who it is said, went soon after the confusion of the language at Babel, and planted a colony in China, or in that eastern country; as all others of mankind had perished in the flood, consequently there were none else to promulge it to but this family.

Dr. Clarke has given his opinion in his Comment on the Book of Job, that the needle was known to the ancients of the east. He derives this from certain expressions of Job, 28th chap. 18th verse, respecting precious stones, which are:-"No mention shall be made of coral pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.” That is, it is understood, that the wisdom which aided man to make this discovery, and to apply it to the purposes of navigation, on the account of its polarity, is that wisdom which is above the price of rubies.

"The attractive proprieties of loadstone must have been observed from its first discovery; and there is every reason to believe that the magnet and its virtues, were known in the east long before they were discoverd in Europe."-Clarke.

But it may be inquired, if the knowledge of the magnet and its application to the great purpose of navigation, and surveying were understood in any degree, how came one branch of the descendants of the family of Noah, those who went east from Ararat, to have it; and the others, who went in other directions, to be ignorant of it; and had to discover it over again in the course of ages.

We can answer this, only by noticing, that many arts of the ancients of Europe and of Africa are lost; but how, we cannot tell; but in the same way this art was lost. Wars, convulsions, revolutions, sweeping diseases, often change the entire face and state of society; so that if it were even known to all the first generation, immediately succeeding the flood, a second generation may have lost it, not dwelling in the vicinity of great waters; having no use for such an art, would of necessity loose it, which remained lost till about the year A. D. 1300.

In the year 1197, before Christ, about the time of Job; a large colony from China, under the Yu dynasty was sent to Japan, and other western islands, who drove out the Oni, or black inhabitants, the first settlers of those islands, a branch, it appears, of the family of Ham, who had found their way across the whole continent of Asia, from Ararat, or else had, by sea, coasted along from the countries of the equator, their natural home, to those beautiful

islands.

From this tract of early settlement, we see the African, as he is now designated, as enterprising in the colonizing of new countries, as they were in the study of Astronomy, and of building, and the invention of letters, at the time the Egyptians first merge to notice on the page of history. And if the Japan islands, a part of the earth as far from Ararat, the great starting point of man after the flood, as is America, and much farther, was found settled by the black race of Ham, why not therefore America.

The 'pure negro has been found on some of the islands between China and America; which would seem to indicate that this race of people have preceeded even the whites, or at least equalled them, in first peopleing the globe after the deluge.

Rafinesque, the great antiquarian, says, the exact time when the Chinese first discovered or reached America, is not given in their books, but it was known to them, he says, and to the Japanese, at a very early period, and called by them Fu Sham, and frequented for trade.

But who were here for them to trade with? Our answer is; those first inhabitants, the white, the red and the black, the sons of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth, who got on to the continent before it was severed from Asia and Africa, in the days of Peleg, one or two hundred years after the flood of Noah.

A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF WESTERN DISCOVERIES.

SIX miles from Lebanon, on the Little Miami, above the mouth of Todd's Fork, are curious remains of ancient works. The form of one of the forts is trapezoidal; the walls are of earth, and generally eight or ten feet high; but in one place, where it crosses the brow of the hill where it stands, it is eighteen feet high. The Little Miami passes by on the west, on the north are deep ravines, and on the south and southeast the same ravines continue, making it a positiou of great strength. The area of the whole enclosure is nearly a hundred acres; the wall has numerous angles, retreating, salient and acute, from which are eighty outlets or gateways.

From which circumstance we learn that its citizens were very great in number, or so many gateways would not have been needed. Two mounds are in its neighborhood, from which walls run in different directions to the adjoining ravines. Round about this work are the traces of several roads; two of them are sixteen feet wide, elevated about three feet in their centre, and like our turnpikes.

The Sioux country, on the Wabispinekan, St. Peters, and Yellow rivers, abound with ancient entrenchments, mounds and fortifications. Six miles from St. Louis is a place called the Valley of Bones, where the ground is promiscuously strewed with human and animal bones; some of the latter are of an enormous size.