Full Many A Mighty Name
Lurks In Thy Depths, Unuttered, Unrevered.
With Thee Are Silent Fame,
Forgotten Arts, And Wisdom.
- W. C. Bryant.
"Who can read the history of the past? Who is there who can tell
the story of creation's morn? It is not written in history,
neither does it live in tradition. There is mystery here, but it
is hid by the darkness of bygone ages."
"There is a true history here, but we have not learned well the
alphabet used. Here are doubtless wondrous scenes, but our
standpoint is removed by time so vast that only the rude
outlines can be determined. The delicate tracery, the body of
the picture, are hidden from our eye. The question as to the
antiquity and primitive history of man is full of interest in
proportion as the solution is set with difficulties. We question
the past, but only here and there a response is heard. Surely
bold is he who would attempt, from the few data at hand, to
reconstruct the history of times and people so far removed. We
quickly become convinced that many centuries and tens of
centuries have rolled away since man's first appearance on the
earth. We become impressed with the fact that multitudes of
people have moved over the surface of the earth and sunk into
the night of oblivion without leaving a trace of their
existence, without a memorial through which we might have at
least learned their names."
"In Egypt we find the seat of an ancient civilization which was
in its power many centuries before Christ. The changes that have
passed over the earth are far more wonderful than any ascribed
to the wand of the magician. Nations have come and gone, and the
land of the Pharaohs has become an inheritance for strangers;
new sciences have enriched human life, and the fair structure
has arisen on the ruins of the past. Many centuries, with their
burden of human hopes and fears, have sped away into the past,
since 'Hundred-gated Thebes' sheltered her teeming population,
where now are but a mournful group of ruins. Yet today, far
below the remorseless sands of her desert, we find the rude
flint-flakes that require us to carry back the time of man's
first appearance in Egypt to a past so remote that her stately
ruins become a thing of yesterday in comparison to them."
(footnote Von Hellwald: Smithsonian Report, 1836.)
Europe, in the minds of some travelers, seems to have a monopoly
on all fair landscapes and ancient civilization, to hear their
overdrawn descriptions gleaned from many books of travel. But,
in the socalled New World we find mysterious mounds and gigantic
earthworks, also deserted mines, where we can trace the sites of
ancient camps and fortifications, showing that the Indians of
America's unbounded primeval forests and vast flowery prairies
were intruders on an earlier, fairer civilization. Here we find
evidence of a teeming population. No one viewing the imposing
ruins scattered about the Mississippi valley and especially the
wonderful work of Fort Ancient can help but marvel at these
crumbling walls of an ancient, forgotten race.
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