For the latter the archeologist is not responsible--for what
criterion, what sign has he to lead him to infer the true date of an
excavated building bearing no inscription; and what warrant has the
public that the antiquary and specialist has not made an error of some
20,000 years? A fair proof of this we have in the scientific and
historic labeling of the Cyclopean architecture. Traditional archeology
bearing directly upon the monumental is rejected. Oral literature,
popular legends, ballads and rites, are all stifled in one word--
superstition; and popular antiquities have become "fables" and
"folk-lore." The ruder style of Cyclopean masonry, the walls of Tyrius,
mentioned by Homer, are placed at the farthest end--the dawn of
pre-Roman history; the walls of Epirus and Mycenae--at the nearest. The
latter are commonly believed the work of the Pelasgi and probably of
about 1,000 years before the Western era. As to the former, they were
hedged in and driven forward by the Noachian deluge till very lately--
Archbishop Usher's learned scheme, computing that earth and man "were
created 4,004 B.
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