Page:The Katunes of Maya History.djvu/13

 THE KATUNES OF MAYA HISTORY.

NOTE BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION.

Publishing Committee are glad of the opportunity to print another paper from the pen of Professor Valentini. His previous contributions have been favorably received by some of the most competent judges. He is always ingenious and suggestive, taking care to sustain his views by adequate collateral information, and leaving an impression of earnestness and thoroughness, even though the reader should not be able always to see the way through his bold inferences to the important conclusions deduced from them.

It seems apparent that new phases of opinion respecting the position in the world's history held by the races occupying the central portions of the American Continent may be looked for in the near future. Or rather, perhaps, it may be claimed that vestiges of ancient and independent culture, of revolutions, conquests, and changing dynasties, extending back to a remote period of time, which have hitherto simply excited and bewildered travellers and explorers, bid fair to he subjected to tests and comparisons derived from wider and closer observation, for which the means are accumulating, and from which definite results are anticipated.

It is remarkable how one tidal wave of investigation after another has, at different eras, invaded and receded from these regions, carrying from them more or less of the fragments of their architectural, monumental, and pictorial records—the sources of doubtful and unsatisfactory interpretation. The Spanish chroniclers; the scientists of the period of Humboldt and his contemporaries; the French government and the learned societies of France, uniting their efforts to render effective the honest but undisciplined enthusiasm of Brasseur de Bourbourg; all have experienced a subsidence of interest arising mainly from a want of success in yielding a sufficiently plausible solution of a mysterious subject. The death of Brasseur, the fall of Maximilian, and the political distractions of the French government and people, are not alone the causes of suspended action on the part of the learned bodies of France. They deemed it prudent to discredit the judgment and correctness of their own agent. One at least of Brasseur's Commission publicly disavowed responsibility for his opinions; and his attempt to interpret