The solar worship prevailed among the most civilized nations and empires: that of Naguals or Zemis (spirits) among those of the second degree. The least civilized nations had either adopted the Dualism or a mixed religion: while the barbarous tribes knew only a kind of _Tao_ religion as in China,(11) or a fetichism, venerating one or many objects of nature. But these four main worships, were subject to many fluctuations, and diversities: they had often degenerated into a Polytheism, and idolatry, with various rites, and some cruel customs, human sacrifices &c. A kind of priesthood was almost universal and formed a peculiar caste in many states. The legislators and rulers had often been priests, and became pontifs as well as kings, in Cuzco, Chimu, Tunca, Mayapan, Cholula, Manazicas &c. During a period of 2 or 3000 years after the floods, the earth had undergone many changes by volcanoes, earthquakes and the subsiding of the sea. Many valleys were drained, their lakes lessened or disappeared; the shores of the Atlantic from New Jersey to Florida and Yucatan, and from La Plata to Magellania, as well as those of Peru, Chili &c. were increased by the gradual retreat of the sea. The great plains of the Mississippi, Oronoc, Maranon and Parana were also formed or drained of their swamps and morasses. It is at the end of this epocha, equal to the antecedent antidiluvian period, that the real or certain history of the Americans begins with many details and dates; both in the north and south. It was then that the empires of the Toltecas, Utatlans, Mexicans, Apalachis, Mayapans, Incas &c. were established on the ruins of many anterior states. We obtain by the annals preserved or recovered of many such nations, a tolerable view of this part of their history, and even an insight into earlier times, when similar revolutions must have happened. If many states or nations rose and fell in this hemisphere, unknown to the other: it was a common fate with others in Africa, Polynesia and even in Asia. But we may hope to rescue their names if not their deeds, from total oblivion, by seeking their monuments, and the fragments of human tribes they left to mourn their fate. In this period some American nations rose to a degree of splendor and civilization, with knowledge of arts and sciences, little inferior to Greeks and Romans; and superior to the European nations of the middle ages, even down to 1492: quite equal at least to that of the Egyptians and Hindus. The American graphic systems of Apalacha, Anahuac, Maya, Otolum, Peru; although peculiar, were quite sufficient to transmit knowledge in books, schools and inscriptions. This high civilization was not merely confined to Mexico and Peru, as often erroneously supposed; but was scattered from the Apalachis and Nachez of Florida to the Chilians south of Peru, filling the whole intermediate space.