[20]. The colony of San Domingo, before its emancipation, was one of the places where the luxury and refinement of wealth had reached its highest point. It was, to a superior degree, what Havana has become through its commercial activity. The slaves are now free and have set their own house in order. This is the result!
[21]. Consult, on this subject, Prichard, d’Orbigny, A. von Humboldt, &c.
[22]. See above, p. 38.
[23]. Compare Carus, Über ungleiche Befähigung der verschiedenen Menschheitstämme für höhere geistige Entwickelung (Leipzig, 1849), p. 96 et passim.
[24]. Prichard, “Natural History of Man,” sec. 37. See also Squier, “Observations on the Aboriginal Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.”
[25]. The special construction of these tumuli and the numerous instruments and utensils they contain are occupying the attention of many eminent American antiquaries. It is impossible to doubt the great age of these monuments. Squier is perfectly right in finding a proof of this in the mere fact that the skeletons discovered in the tumuli fall to pieces when brought into the slightest contact with the air, although the conditions for their preservation are excellent, so far as the quality of the soil is concerned. On the other hand, the bodies which lay buried under the cromlechs of Brittany, and which are at least 1800 years old, are perfectly firm. Hence we may easily imagine that there is no relation between these ancient inhabitants of the land and the tribes of the present day—the Lenni-Lenapes and others. I must not end this note without praising the industry and resource shown by American scholars in the study of the antiquities of their continent. Finding their labours greatly hindered by the extreme brittleness of the skulls they had exhumed, they discovered, after many abortive attempts, a way of pouring a preparation of bitumen into the bodies, which solidifies at once and keeps the bones from crumbling. This delicate process, which requires infinite care and quickness, seems, as a rule, to be entirely successful.
[26]. Ancient India required a vast amount of clearing on the part of the first white settlers. See Lassen, Indische Altertumskunde, vol. i. As to Egypt, compare Bunsen, Ägyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, as to the fertilization of the Fayoum, a vast work executed by the early kings.
[27]. “They say that it spontaneously produces wheat, barley, beans, and sesame, and all the edible plants that grow in the plains” (Syncellus).
[28]. Salvador, Histoire des Juifs.
[29]. M. Saint-Marc Girardin, in the Revue des Deux Mondes.