The similarity which has been observed to exist between the manners of several American nations, and those of some of the oldest nations on our continent, which seems to demonstrate that this country was not unknown in ancient times, has been traced by Nicholls, in the first part of his _Conference with a Theist_, in several particulars, viz. burning of the victim in sacrifices, numbering by tens, fighting with bows and arrows, their arts of spinning, weaving, &c. The arguments, multitudinous as they are, adduced by Adair for his hypothesis that the American Indians are descended from the Jews, serve to prove that the known or old world furnished the new one with men. To these may be added the coincidences noticed in "NOTES AND QUERIES;" burning the dead (Vol. i., p. 308.); the art of manufacturing glass (p. 341.); scalping (Vol. ii., p. 78.). Your correspondents will doubtless be able to point out other instances. Besides drinking out of the skulls of their enemies, recorded of the Scythians by Herodotus; and of the savages of Louisiana by Bossu; I beg to mention a remarkable one furnished by Catlin--the sufferings endured by the youths among the Mandans, when admitted into the rank of warriors, {110} reminding us of the probationary exercises which the priests of Mithras forced the candidates for initiation to undergo. T.J. [Footnote 7: Forster, the translator of this work, annihilates the argument for the settlement of the Welsh derived from the word "penguin" signifying "white head," by the fact of the bird in question having a _black_, not a _white_ head!] _Collar of SS._ (Vol. ii., p. 89.).--B. will find a great deal about these collars in some interesting papers in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1842, vols. xvii. and xviii., conmunicated by Mr. J.G. Nicholls; and in the Second Series of the Retrospective Review, vol. i. p. 302., and vol. ii. pp. 156. 514. 518. Allow me to add a Query: Who are the persons now privileged to wear these collars? and under what circumstances, and at what dates, was such privilege reduced to its present limitation? [Greek: Phi.]