who are divided into three tribes, and at war with the Nanticokes and Totalis.

15th. In 1143, under Atotarho IX., first civil war between the Erians of Lake Erie, sprung from the Senecas, and the Five Nations.

Here end these traditions.

C. S. RAFINESQUE.

The foregoing is a curious trait of the ancient history of the wars and revolutions which have transpired in America.

It would appear that at the time of the overthrow of the Tawancas, 1008 years before Christ, called in the tradition a nation of giants, that it was about the time the temple of Solomon was finished; showing clearly that as they had become powerful in this country they had settled here at a very early period, probably about the time of Abraham, within three hundred and forty years of the flood.

The hero who conquered them was called Yatatan, king of the Onguys, names which refer them, as to origin, to the ancient Scythians of Asia.

Three hundred winters after this, or 708 years before Christ, about the time of the commencement of the Roman empire by Romulus, the northern nations form a grand confederacy and appoint a king, who went on a visit to the great emperor of the Golden city, south of the western lakes.

Were we to conjecture where this Golden city was situated, we should say on the Mississippi, where the Missouri forms a junction with that river, at or near St. Louis, as at this place and around its precincts are the remains of an immense population. This is likely the city to which the seven persons who were cast away on the island Estotiland, as before related, were carried to; being far to the southwest from that island, supposed to be Newfoundland,-St. Louis being in that direction.

This visit of Yatatan to the Golden city, it appears, was the occasion of a civil war of one hundred years, which ended in the ruin of the Golden city. A body of the citizens escaping, fled far to the east, and hid themselves in the mountains of Oswego, along the southern shores of Lake Ontario, where they remained about seven hundred years, till a great leader arose among them, called Tarenyawagon, who led them to settle on the Mohawk; this was eight years after the birth of Christ.

These refugees from the Golden city, had now multiplied so that they had become several nations, whence the grand confederacy of six nations was formed. Upon these, a nation called Flying Heads made war but were unsuccessful; also, in 242 years after Christ, a nation called Stone Giants, made an attempt to destroy them but ailed. They were successful in other wars against the Snake Indians, a more western tribe.

About the time of the commencement of Mahomet's career in 602, a great tyrant arose on the Susquehannah river, who waged war with the surrounding nations, from which it appears, that while in Africa, Europe, and Asia, revolution succeeded revolution, empires rising on the ruins of empires, that in America the same scenes were acting on as great a scale; cultivated regions, populous cities and towns, were reduced to a wilderness, as in the other continents.

EVIDENCE THAT A NATION OF AFRICANS, THE DESCENDANTS OF HAM, NOW INHABIT A DISTRICT OF S. AMERICA. BY C. S. RAFINESQUE.

THE Yarura nation of the Oronoco regions, (also called Jarura, Jaros, Worrow, Guarau, &c.) is one of the darkest and ugliest in South America, some tribes of it are quite black like negroes and are called monkeys. They are widely spread from Guyana to Choco. The following 35 words of their language collected from Chili, Hervas and Vater, have enabled me to trace their origin to Africa.

Those marked ¶ or 7 out of 34 have some analogy with the English, equal to 19 per cent.

The language of the Gahunas, negroes of Choco and Popayan has 50 per cent analogy with the Yarura, since out of 8 words to be compared, 4 are similar.

While the Ashanty or Fanty, negro language widely spread in West Africa has 40 per cent of affinity with the Yarura or six words similar in fifteen comparable.

This is the maximum in Africa. But the language of the Papuas of New Guinea in Polynesia has 50 per cent of Analogy, or six words out of twelve, which is the maximum with the Asiatic and Polynesic negroes.

It may have happened that the Gahunas came from the Papuas through the Pacific; but the Yaruras from the Ashantis through the Atlantic: yet have been once two branches of a single black nation.

"In support of the doctrine that the three sons of Noah were red, black and white, we bring the tradition of the Marabous, the priests of the most ancient race of Africans, which says that after the death of Noah his three sons one of whom was white, the second tawny or red, the third black, agreed to divide his property fairly, which consisted of gold and silver, vestments of silk, linen and wool, horses, cattle, camels, dromedaries, sheep and goats, arms, furniture, corn and other provisions, besides tobacco and pipes.

"Having spent the greater part of the day in assorting these different things, the three sons were obliged to defer the partition of the goods till the next morning. They therefore smoked a friendly pipe together, and there retired to rest, each in his own tent.

"After some hours sleep, the white brother awoke before the other two, being moved by avarice, arose and seized the gold and silver, together with the precious stones, and most beautiful vestments, and having loaded the best camels with them, pursued his

way to that country which his white posterity have ever since inhabited.

"The Moor, or tawny brother, awaking soon afterwards, with the same intentions, and being surprised that he had been anticipated by his white brother, secured in great haste the remainder of the horses, oxen and camels, and retired to another part of the world, leaving only some coarse vestments of cotton, pipes and tobacco, millet, rice, and a few other things of but small value.

"The last lot of stuff fell to the share of the black son, the laziest of the three brothers, who took up his pipe with a melancholy air, and while he sat smoking in a pensive mood, swore to be revenged." —Anquetil's Universal History, vol. 6, p. 117, 118.

We have inserted this tradition, not because we think it circumstantially true, with respect to the goods, &c., but because we find in it this one important trait, viz: The origin of human complexions in the family of Noah: and if the tradition is supposed altogether a fiction, we would ask, how came these Africans the most degraded and ignorant of the human race-by so important a trait of ancient history-as that such a man, with three sons, ever existed, from whom the three races descended, if it were not so.

DISAPPEARANCE OF MANY ANCIENT LAKES OF THE WEST, AND OF THE FORMATION OF SEA COAL.

THIS description of American antiquities is more captivating than the accounts already given; because to know that the millions of mankind, with their multifarious works, covering the vales of all our rivers, many of which were once the bottoms of immense lakes, and where the tops of the tallest forests peer to the skies, or where the towering spires of many a Christian temple makes glad the heart of civilized man, and where the smoking chimnies of his widespread habitations once sported the lake serpent, and the finny tribes, as birds passing in scaly waves along the horizon.

We look to the soil where graze the peaceful flock; to the fields where wave a thousand harvests; to the air above, where play the