of persons, the most learned and experienced in the things of which he proposed to write.  These learned Mexicans being collected, Father Sahagun was accustomed to get them to paint down in their native fashion the various legends, details of history and mythology, and so on, that he wanted; at the foot of the said. pictures these learned Mexicans wrote out the explanations of the same in the Mexican tongue; and this explanation the Father Sahagun translated into Spanish.  That translation purports to be what we now read as the ‘Historia General.’"[1]

[1.  “The Native Races of the Pacific States,” vol. iii, p. 231.]

{p. 192}

Sahagun was a good and holy man, who was doubtless inspired of God, in the face of much opposition and many doubts, to perpetuate, for the benefit of the race, these wonderful testimonials of man’s existence, condition, opinions, and feelings in the last great cataclysm which shook the whole world and nearly destroyed it.

Religions may perish; the name of the Deity may change with race and time and tongue; but He can never despise such noble, exalted, eloquent appeals from the hearts of millions of men, repeated through thousands of generations, as these Aztec prayers have been.  Whether addressed to Tezcatlipoca, Zeus, Jove, Jehovah, or God, they pass alike direct from the heart of the creature to the heart of the Creator; they are of the threads that tie together matter and spirit.

In conclusion, let me recapitulate

1.  The original surface-rocks, underneath the Drift, are, we have seen, decomposed and changed, for varying depths of from one to one hundred feet, by fire; they are metamorphosed, and their metallic constituents vaporized out of them by heat.

2.  Only tremendous heat could have lifted the water of the seas into clouds, and formed the age of snow and floods evidenced by the secondary Drift.

3.  The traditions of the following races tell us that the earth was once swept by a great conflagration: 

a.  The ancient Britons, as narrated in the mythology of the Druids.

b.  The ancient Greeks, as told by Hesiod.

c.  The ancient Scandinavians, as appears in the Elder Edda and Younger Edda.

d.  The ancient Romans, as narrated by Ovid.

e.  The ancient Toltecs of Central America, as told in their sacred books.

{p. 193}

f.  The ancient Aztecs of Mexico, as transcribed by Fray de Olmos.

g.  The ancient Persians, as recorded in the Zend-Avesta.

h.  The ancient Hindoos, as told in their sacred books.

i.  The Tahoe Indians of California, as appears by their living traditions.

Also by the legends of—­

j.  The Tupi Indians of Brazil.

k.  The Tacullies of British America.

1.  The Ute Indians of California and Utah.