Researches Volume 2; Concerning the Institutions & Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America, with Descriptions & Views of Some of the Most Striking Scenes in the Cordilleras! (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1814 Excerpt: ...feel in discussing the analogy of the Greek mythology with that of the banks of the Ganges, and of the Boorampooter. See vol. xiii, p. 191. Essai Politique sur la Nonvelle Espagne, vol. 1, p. 05. HIEROGLYPHIC PAINTINGS. FROM THE RACCOLTA DI MENDOZA. PLATES LVIII & LIX. These engravings tend to throw some light on what we have already said of the rites and manners of the ancient Mexicans. We cannot give a clearer account of the interesting manuscript known under the name of the Raccolta di Mendoza, than by introducing here the explanation, which M. de Palin has given of it in his work on the study of hieroglyphics. We are far from admitting, without exception, all the parallels drawn by this ingenious writer; but we think it a beautiful and fertile idea, to consider all the nations of the Earth as belonging to the same family; and to recognise, in the Chinese, Egyptian, Persian and American sym-- bols, the type of a language of signs, which is common, we may say, to the whole race, and which is the natural offspring of the intellectual faculties of man. See vol. xiii, p. 183. VOL. XIV. N "The collection preserved by Purchas and Thevenot represents, in three parts, the foundation of the city, and its increase by the conquests of its princes; its support by the tributes paid by the conquered cities; its institutions, and the detail of the life of its inhabitants. The whole of this is obvious at the first view. We first distinguish the ten chiefs of the colony, that founded the empire, having the symbols of their names marked over their heads. They meet with the objects which form the arms of the city of Mexico. That stone surmounted by an Indian fig-tree, on which is an eagle, recalls to mind the eagle perched on a tree, and the cup, which the go...