Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1860-09-05
ALOST WORLD.


The past quarter of century, disinterrins
from the dust of ages the hidden secrets G
generations so long gone by that the very
names of many OF the nations who oncesfgur'
ed SO conspiciously in the worlds annals have
perished with them. has developed many
strange facts with regard to ancient America.
1t would be strange, alter all, if instead OF
having "no past, ""no antiquity" as has been
alledged by her detractors, the continent dis
covered by Columbus should prove the older
OF the two. Throughout its entire length and
breadth, traces have been discovered of a race,
or rather a world of people, who performed
their part in the great life drama at so early an
epoch that nearly every vestige of their exis-
tence must have disappeared centuries before
the discoveries of Columbus.
The hardy northmen who visited the Allan
tic coasts as early as the fourth or fifth centu-
ries, found them occupied by hostile races
In such numbers as to repel every attempt to
penetrate the interior; the northmen who
made the first authenticated discoveries in the
Western Hemisphere, in spite of the fact that
Columbus has always received that honor, and
VINO must still have been preceded by others,
whose accounts of the strange lands they had
visited, and the wonders they had seen, in the
absenSe of corroboration, were received as IA
bes by their countrymen. Had there been in
those days such things as newspapers, the
whole world would have learned of the exis-
tence OF another continent. 1t would have
been interesting in a historical point of view,
as it would have developed the existence, and
perhaps have preserved the records of a num-
Der of nations of which the last vestiges are
now fading from the earth.
Whatever may have been the origin of our
Aborigines, it is certain that large portions of
what are now the Unithd States, and of coun-
tries farther south, were inhabited by a numer-
Gus people, wearing comfortable clothing, and
being somewhat advanced in the arts. Some
of them, as those Of Mexico and Central Amer
lea, have left behind them vast ruins. proving
that the cities which they founded were not
unworthy of being ranked with the proudest
of olden time. Throughout the northern conn
try numerous traces of vanished people have
been from time to time discovered, but faint
er and less absolutely defined than those of the
AZtecs-showing conclusively the great
tiquity of the northerners. The mound build
ers, indications of whose industry and engi-
neering skill have been found by the arcbao-
logist Squiers, scattered over the middle and
northern States, must have been more numer-
GUS in their day than the enlightened people
who have supplanted them, yet they have van
ished so entirely from the scene of their earth
ly laborS, that, unless we adopt the theory of
retrogressiOn and accept the North American
Indians and the Southern Aztecs as the lost
representatives of ancient America, we have
not the slightest clue to them.
The most remarkable circumstance in con-
nection with these "peoples'' is that they left
behind them no utensils or other implements,
and that in cases where records have been dis
covered, they were in an alphabet unlike
anything before known (the tablets of Copana
and Palenque, for instance,) as to defy all re-
search. Traces there are of customs similar to
those of the Asiatics-traces of an identity of
language, but all too vague and uncertain, as
yet to base theory upon. 1t seems as though,
at some far gone period of the worlds history,
Providence, punishment for its
sins, had blotted at once from existence, an en-
tire world, whose very monuments mock the
proud and vanglorious spirit which led to their
erection. But there will doubtless arise per-
sons competent to the task, who, from their
knowledge of dialect and heroglyphic writing,
may yet succeed in clearing up this most won
derful and impressive of modern mysteries.