Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/584

568 568 ANCIENT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE. Part IU. in Yucatan. In China many of the crinkum-crankums of their art find their close counter2:)arts in America. But for the distance and the geographical difficulties, no one, probably, would hesitate to admit that the architecture of America may have been borrowed from the Old World. But how did it cross the ocean? At present that bar- rier seems almost insurmountable. But it may not always remain so : the inquiry is still in its infancy, and the tendency of all recent researches has been to show that thei'e were more means of commu- nication and a more direct connection between the nations of the world in ancient times than we have hitherto been disposed to believe was likely or even possible