for their families what must have been at the best but a precarious
shelter.[46] These prehistoric races were succeeded in America by
the Toltecs, Aztecs, Chibcas, and Peruvians, all known in history,
though their origin is as much involved in obscurity as that of their
predecessors. Temples, palaces, and magnificent monuments tell of
the wealth which gold gives, a wealth, alas, which also enervated the
vital forces, so that the Spanish and Portuguese met with but little
serious resistance in their rapid conquests.


FIGURE 8

Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos.



FIGURE 9

House in a rock of the Montezuma Canon.


Such are the facts with which we have to deal. In the following
chapters we shall consider more at length the problems they present,
but already we are led to one important conclusion: in every part of
the globe, in every latitude, in every climate, worked flints, whether
but roughly chipped or elaborately polished, present analogies which
must strike the most superficial observer. "We find them," remarks an
American author, "in the tumuli of Siberia, in the tombs of Egypt,
in the soil of Greece, beneath the rude monuments of Scandinavia;
but whether they come front Europe or Asia, from Africa or America,