indeed under such circumstances they become the very highest historic authority. It is, however, in connection with the other branches of the science, written and traditional, that material relics accomplish their most satisfactory results, their corroborative evidence being even more valuable than the positive information they convey. For instance, tradition relates wondrous tales of the wealth, power, and mighty deeds of a people that long ago occupied what is now a barren desert or a dense forest. These tales are classed with other aboriginal fables, interesting but comparatively valueless; but some wandering explorer, by chance or as the result of an apparently absurd and profitless research, discovers in the shade of the tangled thicket, or lays bare under the drifting desert-sands, the ruins of a great city with magnificent palace and temple; at once the mythic fable is transformed into authentic history, especially if the traditional statements of that people's arts and institutions are confirmed by their relics. Again, the written record of biblical tradition, unsatisfactory to some, when not supported by corroborative evidence, narrates with minute detail the history of an ancient city, including its conquest at a given date by a foreign king. The discovery in another land of that monarch's statue or triumphal arch, inscribed with his name, title, and a list of his deeds, confirms or invalidates the scriptural account not only of that particular event but indirectly of other details of the city's annals not recorded in stone. In America material relics acquire increased importance as corroborative and corrective witnesses, in comparison with those of the old world, from the absence of contemporary written annals. Beside constituting the only tangible supports of the more ancient triumphs of American civilization, they are the best illustrations of comparatively modern stages of art whose products have disappeared, and by no means superfluous in support of Spanish chroniclers in later times, "very many, or perhaps most of whose statements respecting the wonderful phenomena of the New World culture," as I have remarked in a preceding volume, "without this incontrovertible material proof would find few believers among the sceptical students of the present day." * * * * * [Sidenote: IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL RELICS.]