The true Democrat., 1856-02-05

was sent back to earth on her mission. She states that she is 70 years of age, and has been the mother of fifteen children, nine of whom are still living. Her brother, Sly, is 50 years 1 of age. l From the National Intelligencer.
 Peruvian Tumuli Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt re- turn" In common with other creatures, man rsas out of the earth, frets or frsks his allotted hour upon its surface sinks into its bosom, and is resolved back into its elements When the spirit no longer requires it, the tabernacle of clay perishes; its crumbng melt into their pri- mtive fluids, and pass again and again, as they had previously passed, into mineral, vegetable, and living forms. As the molecules of our bo- dies are common to all bodies, there was no philosophical, nor, on other grounds, any forci- ble reason for the ancient practice of preserving the ashes of the dead It is the statute that affects us, not the dust in the culptor's studio; and hence the more popular practice of endea- voring to preserve the body itself which is still more preposterous and impracticable. Can we, then, have nothing to cherish souvenirs of the departed? Yes; that which alone can tru- ly reflect them? Of the countless myriads that have lived and died, not two individuals were
 
 features, not the substance, that should be pre- served. What efforts have been made and uselessly made, to keep the great dead from commngling with their native earthi Embalm- ing to prevent decomposition, collins of incor- ruptbe materials, and these enclosed in ever lasting cemetres like the pyramids, and in others cut into the living rock! How miSera- ply all have failed to evade the inexorabe law quoted above. Then what are few hundred or a few thousand years during which u1recognizeI human remains may have resisted dissolution? hey are less than fractions of momeAts on the dial of time; and what do they umd u? The mummies of Egypt are quarried for fuel, and, whether those of the Pharaohs their wives, their priests, their slaves are split open and chopped up with the same indifference as so many pine logs. The gums and balsams used in embalming them have made them a good substitute for bituminous coal; and thus the very means employed to preserve them have become the active agents of their dissipation. So It Is when the materials of collins have a high market value; they are then seized as con. ceaed treasure, and their contents cast outa rub bsh. Like heroes of the eastern hemisphere the descendants of Manco Capec were some times, If not always, entombed in such, and with considerable treasure besides in vessels of
 
 ish conquerors sought for, often found, and as often plundercd rich Incan .epulchers
 The foregoing train of thought was awakened by reading avery interesting letter from w. w. Evans, esq, engineer of the Africa and Tacna railroad dated Africa, Aug. IS, 1855. The fol- | lowing are extracts:
 :" am most sorry 1 did not give you more information in reference to the Indian relics sent. The fact IS, l never get time to examine 1 personally the excavations among the tombS l cannot say whether the things came out of one tomb, or two or twenty. They are a small portion Of thousands ol similar things from the hundreds of graves we have demolished. The excavations we are making on the hill side at the moro of Africa, is now seventy feet below them. As we work in, everything from the top comes sliding down, dead Indians potS kettles, arrow, heads, etc. The carthenware of ten gets broken Of late there has not much come out that is interesting. Some time since an Indian was started out of his resting place rollet up m stroud of goM. The men, pectlng what It was, cut 1t up into small pieces and divided It among themselves Two pieces got into the hands of my washer woman. She refused to sell them at any price; but 1 have torn off piece and enclose it n this letter. The whole was, I am told, one sheet of the
 
 sheet. They weigh over three fourths of an ounce. And contain twenty-five superficial inches. Our railway line runs near some tu- mutt in the Tacna valley and when we getthe track near them will get Yankees eye into one or more of them. There is one thing 1 always thought interesting about the Indians we dig up here. have examined the skulls of hundreds, and have not seen one with tooth decayed"
 The triangular piece sent measures on one side an inch and half; the edge is smooth comparatively straight, and probably formed a part of the orglna border; the other two edges are rough and ndented as torn from the wash erwoman's portion of the spoil. The gold is between twenty-one and twenty-two carats- perhaps natural alloy. It appears harder and more springy than pure gold I heated it to red heat, with the view of annealing it, but without producing any sensible change in its elasticity. The thickness may be deduced from it's weight, viz, eighteen grains to the square inch. Perfectly to envelop full-grown per son the sheet could hardly have contained less than eight superficial feet, the weight of which would have been between eight and nine pounds. Had the whole been preserved, it would have been the finest specimen of sheet gold that we have heard of since the times of the conquest, and it would have thrown light on the process of spreading out the metal from the ingot or casting-a process most certainly allied to-, if not identified with that of ancient oriental workmen. "And they did beat the gold into thin plates. ."-Exodus, xxxIx B. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tar sish and gold from Uphaz, tho work of the workmen and of the hands of the founder."- Jer. x. 3. Purchas, in his pilgrimage, men, tlons plates two or three feet long hammered out by Mexican goldsmiths.
 The date of these Peruvian tombs is mat ter for conjecture. No clue is afforded by which to reach it. Both the climate and soil being highly favorable to the preservation of the bo- dies in dry state, they may have belonged to remote, and to far remote times. The owner of the shroud we may presume, was sleeping in it long before the tragedies of Pizarro and his fol- lowers began. Scenting gold as keenly as wild animals scent their prey, the burial of bodies in golden attire would then have been almost cer- tainly followed by robbery of the grave and dissertation of the dead. The loss of the en closed body is as much to be regretted as that of its envelope. A person thus honored in death must have been distinguished in lfe-a chleftaln In war or in peace, or possibly priest. Whatever he was, he was most likely inferred with other evidences of his character than his rich winding sheet; and we arc left to deplore the wholesale destruction of tumuli, charged with materials precious to archaologists, with out any one present interested in their preserva- tion or description. THOMAS EwBANK
 Washington, Dec. "A, 1855.
 For the purpose of authenticating the above ! int finv arfic c1o tho