THIS WORK IS DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR

ΤΟ

THE MEMORY OF

HIS DECEASED WIFE

CATHARINE V. UPDEGRAFF WEISE

DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

THE oldest scriptures, sacred and profane, attest the antiquity of the red race.' As early as the antediluvian period this division of the human family had taken possession of the islands and continent of the western hemisphere, where it founded an empire, the most famous and formidable of primeval times. Great in political power, its commercial, agricultural, and other economical interests were commensurably vast and unparalleled. The skill of its architects and engineers was exhibited in large and imposing edifices and in extraordinary and extensive public works. Aggressively belligerent, its armies overran parts of Europe and Africa, exacting tribute, deposing and substituting rulers.

When the Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, began to explore the interior of the continent of America. for gold, silver, and precious stones, they found populated provinces, great cities, temples, palaces, aqueducts, canals, bridges, and causeways. The astonished adventurers also discovered the vestiges of an aboriginal people, among which were many massive tablets. of stone covered with columns of strange hieroglyphics and antique images, picturing a past civilization for 'The Hebrew for man is derived from the verb (DN), to be red.