CHAPTER XLIII. THE THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN. FALLACY OF SO-CALLED DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 1492, AMERICA REALLY ONE OF OLDEST INHABITED CONTINENTS; ALMOST A CONTINENT FROM POLE TO POLE ITSELF-ITS PEOPLE REPRESENTED ALL RACES OF ASIATIC ORIGIN-POPULATED THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO—ITS FOSSIL REMAINS EQUAL TO THOSE OF ANY PART OF THE WORLD-ITS RUINS ANCIENT AS ANY, AND AS FAMOUS IN MIGHTY ACHIEVEMENTS-ITS INCALCULABLE ANTIQUITY RIVALLING EVEN ASIA—A FEW DETAILS -AMERICAN INDIANS SEMITIC ORIGIN, ALIKE TO ESQUIMAUX-ALL SCRIPTURAL DESCENTS AND CUSTOMS. If any further proof is wanted as to the fallacy of manmade dates and man's ignorance, it will be demonstrated in the so-called discovery of America (1492). For there is ample evidence that it had been discovered many times before this, as we shall see. In fact, this is only one of the million mistakes that science has made. America is really one of the oldest continents in the world, its fourteen million square miles proving it equal to that of Asia-its only rival in size and antiquity. It extends virtually from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle, embracing torrid, temperate and frigid zones. It has passed through every epoch known to science and scripture, and is unquestionably part of God's creation of the third day, as is tabulated in an earlier chapter. No country on earth shows older rock or mountain formations, or more extensive forest growths or fossils, and it contains almost all minerals known to scientists, or mentioned in the scriptures. There are found creatures of almost every variety known on earth or in water. It exceeds even Africa and Asia in its equational forests, deserts and plains. While its jungles produce huge reptiles, alligators, crocodiles, pythons, monkeys, parrots and thousands of species of animal, fish and bird life, possessed in such quantities by no other country on earth. In its northern boundaries it penetrates the polar circie stretching farther north than any other continent, reaching to within ten degrees of the north pole (eighty degrees north latitude), while on the south it almost touches the ice pack of the Antarctic Ocean, lying as it does only thirty degrees from the south pole (nearly sixty degrees south latitude). All of this can be verified by consulting the accompanying maps. We will not dwell further on these subjects as we are about to treat of the ancient origin of the country and its people. For it is undoubtedly true that with their thousand languages and their black, white, red, yellow and brown people, the Americas contain no race but is descended from one common ancestry— those who left the ark after the flood. Further we will show that within their borders are found every race of people in all the earth. The fossil remains of human or animal life yield up proof that there existed here pre-historic monsters which were created by God in his first creation; washed about in that awful frightful deluge, and buried beneath the mountains of reformed earth and minerals, when the flood altered the earth's map. These are identical with those discovered in Asia and the other old world continents. It is equally certain that mankind appeared in America as early as in Europe or Africa. And it is probable that when these wandering nomads were scattered over the earth, each new group believed that they had discovered this land and regarded those who had gone before as their discoverers, exactly the mistake made by Columbus and the Spanish nation, and an error which no doubt will occur again, thousands of years from now. Indeed, it is as the scriptures say: "There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. Is there anything whereof it may be said, 'see this is new'? It hath been already of old time, which was before us. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun." (Eccles. 1:9.) We must not infer that only savage tribes came. There is every evidence to show that the civilized communities of the ancient period arrived here first, each one in turn appearing as new people, or strangers to those already there. It seems to me, too, that there is absolute proof that this sort of periodic immigration has been going on since the flood, and counts among the emigrants, civilized and savage folk from ancient scriptural tribes, and from Arabia, Asia, Africa, Polynesia, Europe and the shores of Siberia and Greenland. For in the great valley of the Mississippi and its mighty tributaries, the Ohio and Missouri, are the remains of the works of an extinct race of men who seem to have made advances in civilization far beyond the red men discovered there by the first European adventurers. These remains consist chiefly of tumuli and ramparts of earth, enclosing areas of great extent and much regularity of form. Some of them recall the barrows of Europe or America or the huge mounds and ramparts of Mesopotamia as displayed at Babylon or Nineveh. Others remind us of the ruined hippodromes and ampitheatres of the Greeks and Romans. In that part of North America the barrows are usually truncated cones; but in advancing farther south, they often assume the figure of four-sided pyramids, with flattened tops, like the teocallis, or temples of Mexico and Yucatan. They have been accurately described and many of them delineated in the Smithsonian papers. Indeed, no country on God's earth, not excepting Asia, possesses more ancient proofs of the incalculable antiquity of its occupation. The "Egypt of America" (Mexico) was peopled thousands and thousands of years before it was known to the Mexicans. For there have been discovered great pyramids and huge remains of vast cities and empires (Palenque), for example, nearly a hundred cities in all, with palaces and temples, obelisks, pyramids, sculpture, great walks of hewn |