If then, traces of the lost Atlantis are ever to be recovered in the New World, it must be by some indubitable memorial of a like kind. Old as the legend may be, it is seen that literal graphic memorials—Assyrian, Phœnician, Khita, Egyptian, and Greek,—still remain to tell of times even beyond the epoch assigned to Solon. The antiquaries of New England have sought in vain for runic memorials of the Northmen of the tenth century; and the diligence of less trustworthy explorers for traces of ancient records has been stimulated to excess, throughout the North American continent, with results little more creditable to their honesty than their judgment. What some chance disclosure may yet reveal, who can presume to guess? But thus far it appears to be improbable that within the area north of the Gulf of Mexico, evidences of the presence of Phœnician, Greek, or other ancient historic race will now be found. Certain it is that, whatever transient visits may have been paid to North America by representatives of Old World progress, no long-matured civilisation, whether of native or foreign origin, has existed there. Through all the centuries of which definite history has anything to tell, it has remained a world apart, secure in its isolation, with languages, arts, and customs essentially native in character. The nations of the Maya stock appear to have made the greatest progress in civilisation of all the communities of Central America. They dwelt in cities adorned with costly structures dedicated to the purposes of religion and the state; and had political government, and forms of social organisation, to all appearance, the slow growth of many generations. They had, also, a well-matured system of chronology; and have left behind them graven and written records, analogous to those of ancient Egypt, which still await decipherment. Whether this culture was purely of native growth, or had its origin from the germs of an Old World civilisation, can only be determined when its secrets have been fully mastered. The region is even now very partially explored. The students of American ethnology and archæology are only awakening to some adequate sense of its importance. But there appears to have been the centre of a native American civilisation whence light was slowly radiating on either hand, before the vandals of the Spanish Conquest quenched it in blood. The civilisation of Mexico was but a borrowed reflex of that of Central America; and its picture-writing is a very inferior imitation of the ideography of the Maya hieroglyphics.