the Caucasian race is melting away in the colonies of Great Britain, in South Africa, Australia, and the West Indies. "In these uniform consequences the most obtuse cannot fail to recognise the operation of a universal law, whose primary effects are to diminish migration, and whose ultimate results are the extinction of the exotic population." We suppose none of our readers are obtuse enough not to be aware of the gradual shortening of their jawbones, a phenomenon especially noticeable in members of Congress and popular lecturers. As for the diminution in the number of our teeth, and their rapid decay, we need, alas! no Wilson to remind us of these melancholy facts. What we may call the physical evidence in favor of the Aztec civilization having been thus disposed of by Mr. Wilson, we come now to his treatment of the written and traditional testimony, the accounts that have been handed down to us of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and of the condition of the country at the time when that conquest was made. Mr. Wilson opens his "Chapter Preliminary" with the statement, that, "in this work, the standard Spanish authorities have been followed as long as they followed the truth." This declaration excited, we confess, painful misgivings in our mind; for, if Mr. Wilson was already in possession of the truth, independently of historical research,--whether by communications from the spirits of the _Conquistadores_, or by any other of the easy and popular methods of solving obscure problems,--what need was there of his consulting the standard authorities at all? But we were somewhat cheered, when, a little farther on, we found him stating, that the writer who enters into these discussions must "con musty folios innumerable"; that "it will not do to denounce in general terms the venerable precedents [?] so constantly quoted by our annalists," but that "their defects and their errors must be shown in detail." For it does appear to us, that, if a great historical question is to be opened,--if a series of extraordinary events, hitherto believed by the world to have really happened, are to be denounced as fabulous,--if numerous writers, whose statements and relations have been regarded in the main as worthy of credit, are now to be rejected as liars and impostors,--it is indispensable that the works containing these relations should be carefully examined, that the statements should be compared and subjected to the severest scrutiny, and that the refutation should proceed, step by step, inch by inch, over the whole field of debate. Has Mr. Wilson taken this course? Has he met with clear and resolute argument the accounts which he denounces as "fabrications"? Has he diligently and carefully examined the "standard Spanish authorities"? Has he "conned musty folios innumerable"? Has he read all the works in question? _Has he ever seen them?_