Asiatic nations, though he is unable to point to any particular source from which they have emanated. And John Delafield’s _Enquiries into the Origin of the Antiquities of America_ lead him to the conclusion that the Mexicans were from the riper nations of Hindustan and Egypt, and that the more barbarous red men were from the Mongol stock. Alexander von Humboldt during his travels in South America gave the weight of his vast knowledge and shrewd observation to a consideration of the subject. In their habits of life, in their arts and leading ideas, and in their form of government, in their personal appearance—as the yellowish hue of their complexions and the Chinese cast of features, more particularly as noticed among the tribes of Peru and Brazil—he saw indubious evidence of an Asiatic origin. Everywhere he discerned indications, not of a primitive race, but of the scattered remnants of a civilisation early lost. It is to be earnestly hoped that an inquiry so full of deep interest may not be allowed to die out for want of organised effort to examine and establish the prehistoric connection of these early inhabitants of America with the Old World, possibly with the earliest dynasties of Egypt, before the ravages of time and advancing civilisation have effaced all traces. These traces are still visible and within reach; they are revealed in the buried cities of Central America, in elaborate inscriptions on the massive stonework of Mexico and Guatemala, and in other decorative masonry of a people who have left behind no other vestige of their existence, saving the outcast wanderers who still haunt the forest and prairie.