the wilderness, and are dimiy connected in my mind with that mysterious city before referred to. In fact, it is not difficult for me to believe that in the wild region beyond the lake of Peten never yet penetrated by a white man, Indians are now living as they did before the discovery of America; and it is almost a part of this belief that they are using and occupying adoratorios and temples like those now seen in ruins in the wilderness of Yucatan."-Stevens.

CONCLUSION.

From the history of Peten Grande, from the memorials of the church of Izamal, as well as from the good preservation of the forest-buried city of Tuloom, besides other proofs that have been noticed in the foregoing papers, it decidedly appears that there are no gounds for ascribing any high antiquity to the ruins of Yucatan. These desolate cities, were not, of course, all built at the same time, but are the remains of different, although comparatively modern, epochs. We are not justified in going back to any nation of the Old World for their builders. Nor are they the works of a people that have entirely passed away, and whose history is lost. On the contrary there is every reason to believe them to be the labours of the same races who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, or of some not very remote progenitors.

The entire absence of all local traditions respecting the age and uses of the several structures may be accounted for by the unparalleled circumstances which attended the conquest and subjugation of Spanish America.

Every captain, or discoverer, on first planting the royal standard on the shores of a new country, made proclamation according to a form drawn up by the most eminent divines and lawyers in Spain, the most extraordinary that ever appeared in the history of mankind; entreating and requiring the inhabitants to acknowledge and obey the Church as the superior and guide of the universe, the holy father called the Pope, and his Majesty as king and sovereign lord of these islands, and of the terra firma; and concluding, "But if you will not comply, or maliciously delay to obey my injunction, then, with the help of God, I will enter your country by force; I will carry on war against you with the utmost violence: I will subject you to the yoke of obedience to the Church and King; I will take your wives and children and make them slaves, and sell or dispose of them according to his majesty's pleasure. I will seize your goods, and do you all the mischief in my power, as rebellious subjects, who will not acknowledge or submit to their lawful sovereign; and I protest that all the bloodshed and calamities which shall follow are to be imputed to you, and not to his Majesty, or to me, or the gentlemen

who serve under me."

"The conquest and subjugation of the country were carried out in the unscrupulous spirit of this proclamation. The pages of the historians are dyed with blood; and sailing on the crimson stream, with a master pilot at the helm, appears the leading, stern, and steady policy of the Spaniards, surer and more fatal than the sword, to subvert all the institutions of the natives and break up and utterly destroy all the rites, customs, and associations that might keep alive the memory of their fathers, and their ancient condition."

"Who these people were, whence they came, and who were their progenitors, are questions which involve many considerations, and the dim light which history shed upon them may be summed up in a few words.

"According to traditions, picture-writings, and Mexican manuscripts written after the conquest, the Toltecs, or Toltecans, were the first inhabitants of the land of Anahuac, now known as New Spain or Mexico, and they are the oldest nations on the continent of America, of which we have any knowledge. Banished, according to their own history, from their native country, which was situated to the north-west of Mexico, in the year 596 of our era, they proceeded southward under the directions of the chiefs, and after sojourning at various places on the way for the space of one hundred and twenty-four years, arrived at the banks of a river in the vale of Mexico, where they built the city of Tula, the capital of the Toltecan kingdom, near the site of the present city of Mexico.

"Their monarchy lasted nearly four centuries, during which they multiplied, extended their population, and built numerous large cities, but direful calamities hung over them. For several years Heaven denied them rain, the earth refused them food; the air, infected with mortal contagion, filled the graves with dead; a great part of the

nation perished of famine or sickness; the last king was among the number, and in the year 1052 the monarchy ended. The wretched remains of the nation took refuge, some in Yucatan, and others in Guatimala, while some lingered around the graves of their kindred in the vale where Mexico was afterwards founded. For a century the land of Anahuac lay waste and depopulated. Chechemecas, following in the track of their ruined cities, re-occupied them, and afterwards the Acolhuans, the Tlastaltecs, and the Aztecs, which last were the subjects of Montezuma at the time of the invasion by the Spaniards.

The

"The history of all these tribes or nations is misty, confused, and instinct. The Toltecans, represented to have been the most ancient, are said also, to have been the most polished. Probably they were the originators of that peculiar style of architecture found in Guatimala and Yucatan."

But in identifying the ruined cities of Yucatan, as the works of the ancestors of the present Indians, the cloud which hung over their origin is not removed. We have said that hordes of Indian nations coming from the north, swept at succeeding periods through Mexico, which is the point whose history is most fully known to Europeans. And it appears that the most ancient of these nations, the Toltecans, were the most civilized. Such would have been the conditions, if we suppose migrations of Asiatics to have crossed by Behring's Straits, and been the first to people the New World. The path of this onward tide of human beings would have been from north to south; and their civilization, derived from a source too remote for communication, would naturally be spent in the lapse of ages.

The histories of the eastern and western worlds thus teach us one great lesson. In the elder continents we see the surface of society becoming more refined from age to age, and the mind of each fresh generation enriched by an ever increasing collection of discoveries in the arts and sciences. A mass of knowledge was thus fixed and laid in store for future ages. But the actual condition of the human heart remained the same. the graceful city of Pompeii were trodden by men as The mosaic pavements of morally dark, and as corrupt in appetite, as the crawling denizens of Australian forests. The pictures on the walls of their private apartments, the golden trinkets of their impure forms, the utter impotence of mere intellect over females, their garden-bowers, alike record, in as many the warped heart of man. After an examination of the places and objects, the writer cannot too strongly urge his forced conviction, apart from the multiplied proofs of history, that at the time when the intellectual civilization of the ancient world was at its height, its moral state could not be worse. Here and there a few stern patterns of morality stood out in bold relief from the prevailing darknature from degeneration. Without, there were no purify But there was no power within man to preserve his ing principles. Knowledge was being stored for future ages; but nations and societies grew corrupt and perished, descendants of the first settlers were unable to maintain In the western world we have seen that the scattered even the intellectual heir-loom of the east; their superstitions increased, their power over disease and other natural agents grew weaker; their civilization became blocked up instead of being the living channel of discoveries useful to future generations.

ness.

It was not until the renovating force of CHRISTIANITY was brought to bear upon man, that we can find the tone of society improved. But after its establishment, science reached a higher pinnacle from a broader base; and the morals of common life became wholesome, Children still inherited the human tendency towards evil, else where would be the test of comparison? but the restraint of a Christian community subdued their rising passions. Woman, before pandered to for personal charms, and despised on account of her physical weakness and mental inferiority, was now first respected for her moral worth. Nations composed of these elements, grew less perishable. The only instance, that of France, where the bold experiment was tried of doing without the assistance of Christianity, and of falling back once again upon the unassisted strength of reason, ended in shame, discomfiture, and revolting cruelty. While reading about the picturesque remains of Yucatan, let us not forget these nobler lessons!

* See Saturday Magazine, Vol. XXI., p. 88.
JOHN W. PARKER PUBLISHER, WEST STRAND, LONDON,

I. In every state of civilized society the cultivation of the soil is of the first importance; next to this the mineral riches of the earth claim particular attention. It is soon discovered in every community, that gems and the precious metals are not the really valuable subjects of attention, but that more humble and more extensively diffused substances are necessary to our well-being. Of these, iron and coal occupy the highest rank as the great civilizers of man; then those building-stones with which he constructs and adorns his dwelling: by far the most important of these are granite, calcareous rocks, sandstone, and slate.

Granite is not distributed over very extensive tracts in any part of the globe, yet Scotland possesses a greater variety and abundance than most parts of Europe, and is, perhaps, scarcely excelled by Egypt and Nubia.

Granite appears for the most part in the highest and most central parts of mountainous tracts; but it is sometimes found in the lowest situations, and on the coasts of the ocean. It is always composed of fragmen's of crystals more or less completely aggregated together without any cementing substances. Of these crystals by far the greater number consist of felspar; next in proportion is quartz; and there is usually a smaller number of crystals of mica, or horneblende, VOL. XXIV.

The felspar varies in colour; but it is usually white or red, and to this circumstance is due the prevailing tint of the stone. The mica is not an essential ingredient: it is often present in small quantities, or it is wanting altogether, its place being supplied by horneblende, in which case the stone is no longer called Granite, but Syenite, from Syene, a town of Egypt, the neighbourhood of which abounds in that variety of granite.

In the extensive quarries of Aberdeen the granite appears in distinct concretions of great magnitude, in which the same layers may be seen spreading like the coats of an onion. The central portion of such a mass, or concretion, called by the workmen poot, is the valuable part of the rock. The external parts are called drys, from their shivery and less coherent nature,

The history of the granite quarries of Aberdeen presents a curious illustration of the common prejudice which often leads people to despise the rough materials by which they are surrounded, and to seek elsewhere for that which can be had much better at home, Previously to the year 1730, the buildings of Aberdeen were constructed of the rounded outlying masses of granitic rocks scattered all round the place, over ground then o. the most barren description. There were a few exceptions, such as the East and West Churches, which were built of sandstone regularly squared and brought from a

749

AMONG the numerous employments of the gardener during the busy month of March, is the sowing or transplanting of asparagus, to which delicate vegetable a large space is usually allotted in a gentleman's garden, while it is rarely seen near the dwellings of the poor.

The name of this plant is of Greek origin, and is handed down to the present time in the writings of Dioscorides; but the ancients were accustomed to bestow the same appellation on all young sprouts of vegetables; therefore it is not always easy to ascertain the particular kind of which they are speaking. With the Romans asparagus was a favourite vegetable, and they appear to have been possessed of a very strong-growing variety, and also to have been well skilled in its cultivation, for Pliny, describing the asparagus grown in the neighbourhood of Ravenna, says that three shoots would weigh a pound, whereas with us six of the largest would be required. In the writings of Cato, the cultivation of asparagus is enlarged on in a manner that would lead us to suppose it must have been of recent introduction.

Asparagus is found growing on the borders of the river Euphrates, where it attains a very large size. Many of the steppes in the south of Russia and Poland are also covered with this plant, which is eaten by horses and oxen as grass; but in this situation it is so dwarfish that an ordinary observer would scarcely recognise it as the same species with our cultivated asparagus.

Until the end of the seventeenth century very fine asparagus was largely imported into this country from Holland. The rich moist soil of that land is favourable to the growth and perfection of the plant, and at the present time, the variety known as Dutch asparagus is distinguished for affording the thickest stems. asparagus is a native plant in the British Isles. Wild asparagus grows in Essex and Lincolnshire; on the sea-coast near Weymouth; and also in the vicinity of Edinburgh, though it is otherwise rare in Scotland.

But

The cultivation of this vegetable cannot be recommended in an economic point of view. It affords but little nourishment, and is rather employed to promote than to satisfy the appetite. It is much more expensive to raise than those substantial vegetables, the leaves or roots of which are employed as food; for it is only a very small portion of the plant that is eaten, and that only when in a tender and undeveloped state. The roots of the asparagus penetrate deeply into the ground, and are not affected by the frosts of winter. They consist of fleshy knobs and tubers, which send out numerous shoots early in the spring: the tops of these shoots, as they rise a few inches above the ground, are the only parts used as food. A recent writer has well said, "There are few subjects in vegetable anatomy which display more beauty in their structure, than may be disclosed in a transverse section of a head of asparagus. The shoot of an asparagus grows only from the extremity, and works or vegetates from the centre, and not from the surface as in trees. Thus it pushes up through the soil en masse, if it may be so expressed. The branches which lie so thick together, safe and well protected under their scaly leaves, soon begin to be developed, and are drawn out until the whole plant, with its numerous thread-like leaves, assumes very much the character of a larch tree, having its miniature parts more light and elegant, and the colour of more lively green. The flowers, which wave in graceful panicles, are of a yellow hue, and of a fragrant smell. They are followed by round berries of a bright orange-red. The head of the young shoot of asparagus is edible just as far

as the part which is to flower extends; and thus one who eats a head of asparagus eats in that little space the rudiments of many hundreds of branches, and many thousands of leaves."

Vast quantities of asparagus are raised for the supply of the metropolis; and as this delicate vegetable is often sold at a very high price, it is a source of great profit to those who raise it in extensive plantations of from fifty to one hundred acres in extent. Of the varieties cultivated near London, the Battersea asparagus is distinguished for large, full, close heads, and a reddish tint, and is much in request among market-gardeners. Gravesend asparagus is smaller, and more green-topped, but is reckoned of finer flavour than the preceding. Giant asparagus, the shoots of which are sometimes of immense thickness, is greatly admired for its size and weight: sixty shoots have been found to weigh nearly seven pounds.

Asparagus is a hardy plant, constantly producing ripe seeds every autumn, from which it is cultivated. The seeds from the strongest and finest shoots are taken when quite mature, and of these a pint is sufficient to sow a bed thirty feet long by five feet wide; that is to say, if the bed is intended to form a permanent plantation; but the more usual plan is to transplant the asparagus after one or two years' growth.

on.

The middle of March is the season when, if the weather be favourable, the sowing of asparagus is carried It is sown either broadcast or in drills, according to the fancy of the cultivator. The soil of the seed-bed must be good, and kept free from weeds, and at the same period in the following year, strong plants will be produced, ready to be permanently placed out. Asparagus beds are carefully prepared in a light rich soil, with abundance of manure; for although the plants grow naturally on a poor sandy soil, yet their value as a culinary vegetable entirely depends on the rapidity with which they are raised. The soil should not be less than two and a half feet deep, and the alleys which divide the beds should be sunk considerably below them to carry off the rain, a wet subsoil being extremely inju rious to the plants. In planting out the young asparagus, a line is stretched lengthwise along the bed, nine inches from the edge, and a small trench made, in which the plants are set nine inches apart, with the crown of the roots two inches below the surface; the trench is then filled up, and another opened at the distance of a foot from the first. In this way three or four rows are formed, according to the width of the bed, after which the surface is dressed neatly, and if the weather prove dry, a little water is given occasionally until the plants are established. The crop is permitted for the first two or three years to run up to stalk; but the third year is generally that in which the asparagus bed arrives at maturity. When once come into bearing, the beds will continue to produce their annual crops, with only a little attention to weeding and manuring, for ten, twenty, or even thirty years.

Towards the end of March the sowings for the main crop of carrots generally take place. The carrot is an important culinary root, containing much nourishment; it is also an excellent agricultural vegetable. For its introduction into this country we are said to have been indebted to the Flemings, who in the reign of Queen Elizabeth sought refuge in England from the tyranny of their Spanish oppressor, Philip the Second. The emigrants first began to cultivate the carrot in the neighbourhood of Sandwich, in Kent, and the English, whe were yet but scantily supplied with culinary vegetables, appear gladly to have welcomed this novelty, so that the carrot quickly became the object of careful culture throughout the land. The leaves of the carrot are light and feathery, and the small white flowers grow in umbels. Though little noticed in the present day the leaves were greatly admired when the carrot first came

into cultivation, and ladies occasionally employed them. as a head-dress. Parkinson, a celebrated botanist in the time of James the First, mentions this custom, and if these delicate leaves were not so perishable, and were also somewhat less odorous, there would be nothing to object to in the taste shown by the ladies of that period in substituting this head-dress for one of feathers, or flowers. A winter ornament for rooms is still occasionally formed by cutting the crown from the thick end of a carrot, and placing it in a shallow vessel of water. Tender leaves are soon developed, and thus a little tuft of verdure may be obtained at a time when green leaves are peculiarly pleasing to the eye.

Carrots require a light sandy soil, and this should be prepared eighteen inches deep, with manure at the bottom. The mould should be as fine as possible, and quite clear of roots and stones, which hinder the perpendicular descent of the carrot, and force it into a branched or spiral growth, thus deteriorating its value. The orange or long carrot is the kind preferred for the main crop in gardens, having a more delicate flavour than the red carrot which is usually employed in fields. The seeds of the carrot are armed with forked hairs, and therefore cling together. To remedy this, they are mixed with a little dry sand or wood ashes, and rubbed between the hands to separate them. They are usually sown upon beds three or four feet broad, and raked in smoothly and evenly with a wide rake. Some gardeners prefer sowing them in shallow drills, ten or twelve inches apart, leaving room to introduce the hoe betwe n the rows, and thus to keep the bed more easily free from weeds. When the young carrots are seven or eight weeks old, they are thinned out to four or five inches apart if intended for drawing young, and to eight or ten inches if designed to attain their full size. The second or third week in March, weather permitting, is the best season for sowing the principal crop of this useful vegetable. A large crop of carrots will prove no bad store. Should there be more than necessary for the supply of the family, the refuse of the garden w be very useful where there are pigs, or poultry, a horse, or COW. It is somewhat remarkable that the milk of cows fed on carrots does not acquire any unpleasant flavour thereby, while at the same time the quantity is increased. Calves and sheep thrive well on this food, and hogs are speedily fattened by it. A spirituous liquor has been obtained from carrots, and attempts have been made to procure a beverage resembling beer, and likewise sugar, from this root. It has been even stated that eighteen tons of carrots, the produce of one acre, will yield one hundred gallons of proof spirit, a larger product than that obtained from an acre of barley. The ready-formed saccharine matter in carrots, is two and a half per cent. more than in barley, and six times more than the quantity contained in potatoes.

A still more nourishing and valuable root, but one that is less employed as a culinary vegetable, is the parsnip, of which the main crop is also sown about the second or third week in March. The parsnip, like the carrot, may be found growing wild in our fields, but is greatly improved by cultivation. The same mode of culture described for the carrot is likewise applicable to this vegetable. Sir H. Davy found in one thousand parts of parsnip, ninety-nine parts of nutritive matter, of which nine parts are mucilage, or starch, and ninety saccharine matter, or sugar. As a field vegetable for the use of live stock, the parsnip is equally valuable with the carrot, perhaps more so, and as a garden vegetable it is deserving of greater attention than it now meets with. Neill informs us, that in the north of Scotland parsnips are beaten up with potatoes and a little butter, making a most excellent mess, of which the children of the peasantry are very fond, and on which they thrive well. The vegetable was certainly better accounted of in former times than at present, and was by

no means confined to its modern use, namely, that of being a mere accompaniment to salted fish, or other salted provisions. An agreeable soup is made by French and Dutch cooks from this vegetable: parsnip wine is also made in many places, and is one of the best and cheapest of home-made wines, and very easy of manufacture. It approaches nearer than any other wine to the Malmsey of Madeira and the Canaries. Marmalade, made of parsnips and a small quantity of sugar, is said to excite appetite, and to be a very proper food for invalids. A side dish has been sometimes introduced at the first tables, consisting of parsnips, first boiled, then dipped in thin batter of flour and water, or the white of eggs, and fried brown.

The latter end of March is also the time for sowing beet, and though this vegetable is not in great favour among us, it may be well to notice its nutritive qualities, and thus to draw attention to its cultivation and cookery. As it is at present employed, it is found so insipid as to be nearly disregarded, but if the skill of the cook could make it somewhat more savoury, it would form a valuable addition to our list of vegetables. According to Sir H. Davy's analysis, it contains nearly fifteen per cent. nutritive matter, which is more than any other root except the potato. One of the varieties of beet is called mangel-wurzel, and is well known for the amount of nourishment it affords to cattle. There is no reason why the cultivated garden varieties should not be equally important to man, if they could by any means be rendered pleasing to his taste. Red beet is the kind principally used in the garden. The root is in the form of a carrot, and is red throughout its whole substance. It is very juicy, and when sliced it gives out a juice of a beautiful purple colour. The leaves are large and long, and generally have a red or purple tinge. This vegetable is sometimes boiled, sliced, and served up warm with melted butter; but it is not very palateable. The green leaves are also dressed as spinach, which they much resemble in flavour. The fleshy leaf stalk has an agreeable flavour when boiled and served with butter. The more usual way of employing these roots is, after boiling, to leave them to grow cold, when sliced and eaten with vinegar they are agreeable in salads or otherwise. The author of the Vegetable Cultivator, tells us that a beet-root sliced up with a Reading or Portugal onion, boiled also in soft water, makes a nice condiment with cold meat, if mixed with spices and vinegar, and an egg or two boiled hard.

The beet (beta) takes its name from the shape of the seed-vessel, which, when mature, has the form of the letter so called in the Greek alphabet. This root was well known among the Romans, an accurate description of it being given by Pliny. The plant is a native of the sea-coast of the south of Europe, and appears to have been introduced into England at the same time with several other culinary plants, about the year 1548. It is perfectly hardy, and bears our climate well, in most parts of the kingdom. From one variety of beet-root, sugar is extensively prepared in France.

The cultivation of the beet is very simple. All the varieties are raised from seed sown in March or April, in the place where the plants are to remain. An open situation, and a rich, light, sandy soil, are best for the plant. The seed is sown thinly, either broadcast, or in shallow drills. The plants come up in a month, and are then thinned and weeded by hand. Ten or twelve inches is left between the plants each way.

The other operations of the month are chiefly the repetition of former processes. Beans, peas, lettuce, small salad, parsley, cabbage, turnips, onions, and seakale, are sown once or twice. Slips of herbs are put in, horse-radish and artichokes planted, peas and beans earthed up, early cabbages and autumn-sown lettuces transplanted, and general attention given to the soil, and to the removal of weeds and litter.