America older than Europe, Asia, or Africa.—Chronic Errors on the Subject.—Europe presented to America.—Truth vindicated.—Proofs of our Superior Antiquity.—Luxurious Civilization of the Races who stocked this Continent before the Indians.—Amount of Coal left by them unburned.—Large supplies of Fish packed away safely in our Mountains.—Fish Culture Measure of Human Culture.—Fossil Cran-iology.—Laughable Blunders of Former Historians and Ethnologists.—Ancient Nations, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Ten Lost Tribes, etc., trickling through, appearing on this Side of the Earth.—Instances cited.—Mythologies of Greece and Rome originated here.—Proofs and Reproofs.—American Nests well feathered Ages ago.—Large Stocks for Future Use. [Illustration: AMERICA BEFORE ITS DISCOVERY.] Hitherto not only foreign writers, but even our own people, have ignored the existence of America prior to what is popularly called its discovery, a phenomenon which might be more appropriately denominated a return of the descendants of the old stock to the haunts of their forefathers. That event—reserved until the close of the fifteenth century of the Christian era, after the invention of gunpowder had exploded numerous obstructions in the path of progress, and just before the Lutheran Reformation came in with its fresh needs for more room—turned up an Old World for new uses. Of course the newly ventilated space thus rediscovered excited much talk at the time, and created a sensation in that unsensational age. The first Europeans who were presented to America were as much elated, as Americans now at their presentation to European courts; as if America, like those courts, had not existed and had not had its shows, jewels, follies, history, and _fêtes_, centuries before they were shown up to it. Has not this sensation lasted quite long enough? Is it not time—now that nearly four hundred years have allowed the first ardor and surprise to cool off—to vindicate the claim of the Western Continent against the long-suffered error of mistaking what they were new to for what was itself new? The arrogant pretensions of what is pleased to call itself the Old World have quite long enough kept back our bashful and blushing claims.