And thus it is in both Americas where many nations and empires have dwelt and passed away, risen and fallen by turns, leaving few or no records, except the traces of their existence, and widely spread colonies by the ruins of their cities and monuments, standing yet as silent witnesses of past dominion and great power. It is only of late that they have begun to deserve the attention of learned men and historians--what had been stated by Ulloa, Humboldt, Juarros, Delrio, &c., of some of them, chiefly found in the Spanish part of America, as well as the scattered accounts of the many fragments found in North America, from the lakes of Canada to Louisiana, although confined to a few places or widely remote localities, have begun to excite the curiosity of all inquiring men, and are soon likely to deserve as much interest as the famed ruins of Palmyra and Thebes, Babylon and Persepolis; when the future historians of America shall make known the wonderful and astonishing results that they have suggested, or will soon unfold, particularly when accurately surveyed and explored, drawn and engraved; instead of being hidden and veiled, or hardly noticed by the detractors of the Americans, the false historians of the school of Depaw and Robertson, who have perverted or omitted the most striking features of American history. The most erroneous conceptions prevail as yet concerning them, and the most rude or absurd ideas are entertained in our country of their objects and nature. As in modern Greece, every ruin is now a _Paleo-castro_ or old castle for the vulgar peasant or herdsman, thus all our ruins of the West are _Indian forts_ for the settlers of the Western states; and every traveller gazing at random at a few, exclaims that _nothing is known about them, nor their builders_. The more refined writers can be very sentimental on their veiled origin, but scarcely any one takes the trouble to compare them with others elsewhere, in or out of America, which would be, however, the only means to attain the object they seem desirous of, or to unravel their historical riddle. Some writers speak of them as if they were only a few mounds and graves, scarcely worthy of notice; yet they are such mounds as are found yet in the Trojan plains, sung by Homer, dating at least three thousand years ago, and even by many deemed earlier than the Trojan war, and still existing to this day to baffle our inquiries: while similar monuments existing by thousands in the plains of Scythia and Tartary, Persia and Arabia, as well as the forests and prairies of North America, evince a striking connexion of purpose and skill by remote ancient nations of both hemispheres.