Spring, or Adonis, coming to light and warmth after the long death of
winter in the womb of the earth. The ark, which floats on the waters,
bearing within it the regenerator, signified the same; so did the cup or
horn into which the wine of life was poured and from which it was drunk;
so too did nuts, or any object capable of representing latent existence.
The passing into a cavern through a door between pillars or rocky
passes, or even the wearing of rings, all intimated the same
mystery--the going into and the coming forth into renewed life.

4. But the great active principle which lay at the foundation of the
mystery of birth and death, or of action, was set forth by the
serpent--the type of good and evil, of life and destruction--the first
intelligence. It is the constant recurrence of this symbol among the
early monuments of America, as of the Old World, which proves most
conclusively the existence at one time of a common religion, or
'cultus.' It was probably meant to signify water from its wavy curves,
and the snake-like course of rivers, as inundation seems to have been,
according to early faith, the most prolific source of the destruction of
nature, and yet the most active in its revival.

There are in Brittany vast lines of massy Druidic stones, piled
sometimes for leagues in regular order, in such a manner as to represent
colossal serpents. Those who will consult the French _Dracontia_ will be
astonished at the labor expended on these strange temples. Squier has
shown that the earth-works of the West represent precisely the same
symbol. Mexico and South America abound, like Europe and the East, in
serpent emblems; they twine around the gods; they are gods themselves;
they destroy as Typhon, and give life in the hands of Esculapius.

In the United States, as in Europe and in the East, there are found in