Edward H. Thompson

“ And we have faith, as science grows to grander proportions and dispels some of the mist that now envelops it, that some day not far distant will bring forward an historic Edison that shall bring together the faint voice of the prehistoric past and the bright, clear voice of the present; that some future Champollion will discover, among the ruined cities of the Americas, an American Rosetta-stone that will complete the chain of human history. "The noblest study of mankind is man." ”

“ The protecting angels become destroying fiends, vomiting fire and liquid hell upon the devoted cities at their feet, burning, scorching, strangling their wretched inhabitants. The earth rocks horribly, palaces, temples, all crashing down, crushing their human victims, flocked together like so many ants. ”

“ Such is probably the history of this lost civilization, and such would have been the history of our civilization had we in our infant growth been cut off from receiving the nourishment of the mother countries.
Within the last twenty-five years, all sciences relating to the past and present of man have been enormously developed. Old, worn-out, useless theories have been discarded, new facts have taken their places, discoveries have followed discoveries, each discovery helping to form, link by link, the chain of human history. ”

“ Again, the spirit of bigotry, the spirit that told men to scorn and deride Galileo and Columbus, is fast passing away, and in its stead comes the spirit of rationality, a spirit that tells men to look upon a new idea or theory, even if it does run outside of the accustomed rut, with a reasoning if not favorable eye. ”

“ That they appreciated this discovery is evinced by the innumerable evidences of their works and of their skill in discovering the richest and most promising veins. Wherever our miners of the present day go, they find their ancient fellow craftsmen have been before them, worked the richest veins and gathered the best copper; and it is supposed that they continued thus till the terrible blotting out of their native country cut short all this, and left this advancing civilization to wither and die like a vine severed from the parent stem. ”

“ OUR sturdy worker in the copper mines of Lake Superior, finding both himself and his vein of copper growing poorer day by day, determines to seek some more paying claim in the as yet unexplored portion of the copper country. He gathers his kit of tools together and starts, and, after many a hard hour's travel over the wild and rugged country, finds a region with abundant signs of copper, and where seemingly no human foot has trod since creation's dawn. ”

“ Comfort and prosperity abound. The sun shines clear overhead, and the huge mountains look down upon the cities and villages at their feet, like a mother upon her babes: all is a picture of peacefulness. ”

“ Vast rents open at their very feet, licking with huge, flaming tongues the terrified people into their yawning mouths. And then the inundations. Mighty waves sweep over the land. The fierce enemies, Fire and Water, join hands to effect the destruction of a mighty nation. ”

“ Long before this they had spread over the portion of the Americas contiguous to the peninsula, building cities, palaces, roads, and aqueducts, like those of their native homes; and adventurous pioneers continually spreading north, east, and westward, their constant increase of numbers from their former homes enabling them to overcome the resistance offered to their progress by both natives and nature, till at last they reached and discovered the copper country of Lake Superior. ”

“ This peninsula was a fair and fertile country inhabited by rich and civilized nations, a people versed in the arts of war and civilization—a country covered with large cities and magnificent palaces, their rulers according to tradition reigning not only on the Atlantic Continent, but over islands far and near, even into Europe and Asia. ”

“ He strikes a rich vein and goes steadily to work digging and blasting his way to the richer portions, when suddenly, right in the richest part, he finds his lead cut off by what looks to his experienced eye marvelously like a mining shaft. ”

“ This, that either the traditions and narratives of these ancient writers and historians of both lands are but a tissue of fabrications, evolved from their own brains, with perhaps a small thread of fact, or else that they are truths, and truths proving that the Americas, instead of being the youngest habitation of man, are among the oldest, if not, as De Bourbourg affirms, the oldest. ”

“ The traveler in wandering through the dense and almost impenetrable forests of Central and South America, suddenly finds himself upon a broad and well-paved road, but a road over which in places there have grown trees centuries old. ”

“ Again, Plato, in an extract from Proclus, speaks of an island in the Atlantic whose inhabitants preserved knowledge from their ancestors of a large island in the Atlantic, which had dominion over all other islands of this sea.
Plutarch, in his life of the philosopher Solon, Herodotus, and other ancient writers, speak of this island as a known fact, and it is impossible to believe otherwise than that Seneca thought of Atlantis when he writes in his tragedy of "Medea": "Late centuries will appear, when the ocean's veil will lift to open a vast country. New worlds will Thetsys unveil. ”

“ Brasseur de Bourbourg, who Baldwin says has studied the monuments, writings, and traditions left by this civilization more carefully and thoroughly than any man living, is an advocate of this theory, and to him are we indebted for most of our translations of the traditions and histories of the ancient Americans. ”

“ Gradually, and contesting every step, as is shown by their numerous defensive works along their path, they were forced back to their cities on this continent, that had been spared them from the universal destruction of their country, where the dense and almost impassable forests afforded them their last refuge from their enemies, and where, reduced by war, pestilence, and other causes, to a feeble band, their total extinction was only a matter of time. ”