24. _Conquest of Mexico_, vol. I, pp. 89, 90. 25. _Ancient America_, pp. 187, 188, J. D. Baldwin. 26. _Native Races_, Bancroft, vol. V, p. 147. 27. _Native Races_, vol. V, pp. 145, 146. The whole chapter from which the above passage is quoted deals with the subject of the early writers on ancient America, and could with profit be considered by the reader. W. H. Prescott also has a very choice set of notes on the subject of the same class of writers in his first book on the conquest of Mexico, especially those notes following each chapter on some special authority on whom he mainly relies for the statements in his text. CHAPTER XXVI. INDIRECT EXTERNAL EVIDENCES--AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES--Continued. The Book of Mormon, as already stated, requires the evidence of the existence of a very ancient civilization in the north continent of America, with its central and most enduring monuments in our Central American states. Also the evidences of a later civilization somewhat overlaying and intermixed with the former; the monuments of these two civilizations, however, may be somewhat confused by the rise of another, though inferior civilization, during the thousand years immediately preceding the advent of the Spaniards in America, which had begun to raise itself out of that chaos of confusion into which things were thrown by the destruction of the Nephites and their government. Under these circumstances it may be extremely difficult to separate these antiquities and assign each group to its proper division. But this much we feel confident can be done; evidence can be adduced that such ancient civilizations did exist; that the monuments of one has overlaid and intermixed with the others; that the central location of the first was in our Central States of America, and so far as such evidence is adduced, to that extent the claims of the Book of Mormon will be sustained. In the presentation of such evidence I can only take the humble part of compiler of it from the writings of others, since I lay no claim to original investigation of the matter; and even in the work of presenting the utterances of conceded authorities upon the subject, one stands momentarily confused, not because of the lack of matter to present to the reader, but in the matter of selecting from the great mass those passages suitable for our limited space, and which shall be most direct and convincing. With so much by way of introduction, then, I present first of all:-- I. _The Evidence of the Existence of Ancient Civilizations in America._