Note 177 — Chapter III

Deserts, vol. i, p. 26. But what else could be expected of the editor of that curiosity of Americo-Germanic literature executed by some German school-boy and unearthed in the Arsenal Library at Paris, entitled Manuscript Pictographique Américain précédé d’une notice sur l’Ideographie des Peaux-Rouges, par l’Abbé Em. Domenech, Paris, 1860. Published under the auspices of the Minister of State and of the Emperor Napoleon III. See also Le Livre des Sauvages au Point de Vue de la Civilization Française, Brussels, 1861. The internal evidences of this remarkable MS. being the work of a German boy are plain to any one having the slightest knowledge of the German language. How the Abbé and the Emperor could have been so blinded to its real character we cannot imagine; however, it would be unfair to leave the impression that, because of the theory of Ophir’s colonization and because of this literary blunder, the Abbé’s work entitled Seven Years’ Residence in the Great Deserts of North America is without value. On the contrary, it contains much useful information. The following passage occurs on p. 66 of the above work: “The most careful study concerning the origin of the red-skins, made on the spot, has confirmed us in the belief that there is nothing in science to contradict the Bible, which represents Adam as the sole stock whence sprung the three great races which form the principal types of the human family.”