Monumental archæology, as distinguished from written and traditional archæology, owes its interest largely to its reality and tangibility. The teachings of material relics, so far as they go, are irrefutable. Real in themselves they impart an air of reality to the study of the past. They stand before us as the actual work of human hands, affording no foothold for scepticism; they are the balance-wheels of tradition, resting-places for the mind wearied with the study of aboriginal fable, stepping-stones on which to cross the miry sloughs of mythic history. The ruins of a great city represent and recall vividly its original state and the populace that once thronged its streets; the towering mound or pyramid brings before the observer's mind toiling bands of slaves driven to their unwelcome task by strong progressive masters; temples and idols are but remnants of religious systems, native fear, superstition, and faith; altars imply victims and sacrificial ceremonies; sculpture, the existence of art; kingly palaces are the result of a strong government, wars, and conquest; sepulchral deposits reveal thoughts of another life; and hieroglyphic inscriptions, even if their key be lost, imply events deemed worthy of record, and a degree of progress toward letters. What the personal souvenir is to the memory of dead friends, what the ancestral mansion with its portraits and other relics is to family memories and pride of descent, what the ancient battle-ground with the monument commemorating early struggles for liberty is to national patriotism, what the familiar hill, valley, stream, and tree to recollection and love of home,--all this and more are material relics to the study of ages gone by. Destroy such relics in the case of the individual, the family, and the nation, and imagine the effect on our interest in a past, which is, however, in nearly every instance clearly recorded. What would be the consequence of blotting from existence the ruins that stand as monuments of a past but vaguely known even in the most favorable circumstances through the medium of traditionary and written annals? Traditional archæology, fascinating as its study is and important in its results, leaves always in the mind a feeling of uncertainty, a fear that any particular tradition may be in its present form, modified willfully or involuntarily in passing through many hands, a distortion of the original, or perhaps a pure invention; or if intact in form its primary signification may be altogether misunderstood. And even in the case of written annals, more definite and reliable of course than oral traditions, we cannot forget that back beyond a certain time impossible to locate in the distant past, history founds its statements of events on no more substantial basis than popular fable. [Sidenote: COUNTERFEIT ANTIQUITIES.]