luxuriant soil, the purest air, and, in fine, by every gift of nature that ever blessed our earth--politically and socially constituted by laws the most mild and effective that were ever devised--this city, unsurpassed in magnitude by any other of the eastern continent, may, in truth, be thought the great paradise of the western world. But the reflections arising from a glance at this part of our subject, though now seemingly irresistible, would follow, more appropriately, perhaps, the description; and so it may be with those arising from a view of the extraordinary relics of antiquity which every where meet the eye in the great western valleys of United America. Trusting, by these preliminary observations--not, we hope, indulged at too much length--to have awakened attention to the importance of our subject, we shall pass to particulars, which seem to us to possess no common interest. It should be sufficient to induce popular research, when it is remembered, that these facts are connected with the most interesting portions of the history of man--with great and signal epocha of the world; that they involve the relative condition of the intellectual and moral state of our species, with their comparative local and general happiness, during all time. Aside, however, from the associations which the subject of antiquities generally excites, our own antique arts will be seen to have peculiar and striking characteristics. They are not hackneyed, like others, but come to us with all the freshness of romance. They are singularly unique; and, what is not less important, they reveal to us a hitherto unknown people, which, amid the world's alarms, the wars and revolutions that have destroyed a great proportion of the human population, have quietly remained for thousands of years, if not from the origin of man, on this continent. Of these strange people, not a scrap of recorded truth is known to have been left us. Not a traditionary story, nor a symbol, is yet brought to light, that clearly tells us, as we have long anxiously hoped, of the manners and customs of this large division of our race. Their arts, it is true, develope extraordinary facts, and, in the very language of the people, reveal faint records of their character and origin; but to us they are a sealed book; and so they must remain, until some bold and gifted spirit, with untiring research, removes the veil. This lack of historical evidence, however, does not add essentially to the interest of this subject. It gives an additional spur to our inquiries; it incites us to an examination of the only testimonials which yet remain, of the numbers, character, and origin, of these lost nations.