Page 127 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

ANNUAL ADDRESS. 123

annual exposure, for many ages, to running fires, set by savage
men, to faditate their hunting, as the Indians have been accus-
tomed to do, till the timber has been eradicated from them.
There are causes, such as streams, lakes, marshes, inclinations
of surface, leanness of soil, &c., which are every where modi-
fying the effects of the fires and limiting the extent of the
prairies; but, other things being equal, it is philosophically true
that where the country has been longest exposed to the fires,
the more extensive must be the prairies and the longer must the
country have been inhabited by man.
It is a fact also, that the further we proceed westward, the
more extensive do we find the prairies. And thus it is that the
prairies whisper their assent to the traditions of the Indians,
concerning a western origin.
Had we time to compare the probable dates of the rude
remains of Indian art, scattered over the continent, we should
find them pointing in the same direction; but we must pass this
broad field with a single example. The ancient works at Azta-
Ian, in our own State, constructed of rude, but well burnt brick,
now quite crumbled down and buried with earth, are evidently
much older than any similar works in the eastern States; and
yet they ore as manifestly of more recent date than the massive
stone structures found near the Pacific coast.
Passing now to the more civilized tribes of Mexico and Peru,
who had preserved a more authentic history, we find the fact
established beyond a question, that those countries were, at
different periods somewhat remote from each other, successively
overrun and conquered by bands from the north, in some instan-
ces superior to the former masters of the country in all respects,
and in others only in the arts of war. The roads, canals,
aqueducts, temples and other works of art in Peru, were also of
much later date than many similar works in Mexico.
Thus, from the fragmentary history, the remains of art, and
other traces of the Indian tribes, we are enabled, so to speak,
to establish the parallax of their origin, the converging lines of
which point to the western coast, north of the Gulf of Mexico;