in the northern nations, existing, as we have reason to suppose, within the vast extent of country between the ancient Tultiques and the present south-western boundary lines of the United States, the lapse of a long period of time must be supposed necessary for their acquirement of that extraordinary proficiency of which they were found to be possessed by the tyrant invader, Cortes. The Tultecan people, it has been observed, were completely isolated on a mountainous plain, more than five thousand feet above the level of the sea, where they enjoyed a climate more temperate and genial, an air more salubrious, and natural productions more rich and abundant, than it has been the lot of any other people of the earth to enjoy. It is therefore from this paradisial location that we are to date our knowledge of this people, since we are provided with no facts which prove them, or any other people, to have had an anterior existence on this continent. The ruined arts of Yucatan and of Guatemala do not satisfy us that those provinces were inhabited previous to that of Chiapa, and the delightful vale upon the Cordillera mountains, where we now find the astonishing remains referred to. On the contrary, their present condition shows them to have been constructed long posterior. The people whose they were, should be considered as _colonists_ from the great Palencian city, which must have overflowed with population. The arts and customs of these colonists are seen to have been precisely those of the parent city, as well also as their religion. So late, in fact, was the origin of Copan, that we are led to believe it to have been a city built subsequent to the destruction of the Palencian capital. Some of the edifices, and many of the monuments, still remain: the coloring matter used in the drawings upon the obelisks is also as fresh and as bright, apparently, as it was when first put on; notwithstanding the materials of which the buildings, etc., are composed are more exposed to moisture, and consequently, more liable to disintegration, than those of Palenque. In these obelisks, we have a novelty among the arts preserved for our admiration, as relics of the ancient American people. Nothing resembling them has yet been found at Palenque, though it is possible such may have existed, both in that city and in the province of Yucatan; but they long since crumbled in the general wreck of ruins. It may be in place here to introduce a notice of some of these ancient structures, now existing in a state of tolerable preservation in the city of Copan, in the Province of Honduras, and on a river of the same name.