z iii



INTRODUCTION)



not prove useless to many of our readers, who might not
have, hitherto, paid any particular attention to these sub-
jects. We hope, therefore, that the novelty of our plan,
while it tends, not only to trace the origin of the RED
MEN of America, but that of almost all other nations
likewise, will be equally gratifying to the scientific
and the curious.



CREATION OF THE WORLD.



  IN order to arrive at the particular era, when the
matter of this earth was called into existence, philoso-
phers have amused themselves in various ways. The
materials of which it was composed, and the means
whereby ihey were disposed in the order in which we
behold them; is a subject also, ivhih, though far beyond
                                4
the reach of human sagacity, has nevertheless originated
theories and controversies almost without number, among
the learned of all ages and countries. Many imagine
that the world had no beginning, but existed from all
eternity, while others are of opinion that it did exist at
some particular time unknown to man, and that it was
destroyed at different times by some great revolution in
nature.,
  With regard to the opinion, that the world existed from
eternity, none of the ancient philosophers seem to have
had the least idea of its being possible to produce some-
thing out of nothing, not even by the power of the Deity
itself; hence must have arisen the erroneous opinion that
the world had 110 beginning. Next to this system, came
the doctrine, that, though the matter of the world be eter-
nal, its form is mutable.
  The learned have observed, calculated, and commem-
orated the' appearances and revolutions of the heavenly
bodies, to the system of which this orb belongs; they
have penetrated into the bowels of the earth and the
depths of the ocean, to trace the irregular dispositions of