394

APPENDIX.

[Part 1.

9

curious, the coincidences might be accidental, andadd little to the weight of evidence offered by anagreement in combinations, of so complex and arti-ficial a character, as those before stated.

Amidst these intellectual analogies, one wouldexpect to meet with that of language , the vehicleof intellectual communication, which usually exhibitstraces of its origin, even when the science and litera-ture, that are embodied in it, have widely diverged.No inquiry, however, has led to less satisfactory re-sults. The languages spread over the western con-tinent far exceed in number those found in any equalpopulation in the eastern . 43 They exhibit the re-markable anomaly of differing as widely in etymol-ogy as they agree in organization; and, on theother hand, while they bear some slight affinity tothe languages of the Old World in the former par-ticular, they have no resemblance to them whateverin the latter . 49 The Mexican was spoken for an

like the Aztecs . — This account,transcribed by Carli’s French translator, and by M. de Hum-boldt, is more fully criticized byM. Jomard in the V ues des Cor-dilléres, p. 309, et seq.

48 Jefferson, (Notes on Virginia,(London, 1787,) p. 164,) confirm-ed by Humboldt (Essai Politique,tom. I. p. 353). Mr. Gallatincomes to a different conclusion.(Transactions of American An­ tiquarian Society , (Cambridge,1836,) vol. II. p. 161.) Thegreat number of American dia-

lects and languages is well ex-plained by the unsocial nature ofa hunter’s life, requiring the coun-try to be parcelled out into smalland separate territories for themeans of subsistence.

49 Philologists have, indeed, de-tected two curious exceptions, inthe Congo and primitive Basque ;from which, however, the Indianlanguages differ in many essentialpoints. See Du Ponceau’s Report,ap. Transactions of the Lit. andHist. Committee of the Am. Phil.Society, vol. I.