2. The ancient Americans did not have the horse.

The Book of Mormon declares that the Jaredites and Nephites had the horse and other domestic animals.

Of the former, Ether says : "And the Lord began again to take the curse from off the land, and the house of Emer did prosper exceedingly under the reign of Emer ; and in the space of sixty and two years, they had become exceeding strong, insomuch that they became exceeding rich, having all manner of fruit, and of grain , and of silks, and of fine linen , and of gold , and of silver, and of precious things, and also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kind of animals which were useful for the food of man ; and they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants , and cureloms, and cumoms : all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants, and cureloms, and cumoms."—Ether 4:3.

After the extermination of the Jaredites these domestic animals became wild, and when the Nephites entered Peru they are said to have found in the wilderness "both the cow, and the ox, and the ass , and the horse, and the goat, and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men.'-1 Nephi 5:45 . See also Enos 1 : 6 , Alma 12:11 and Alma 12:24.

To make it appear to their readers that these references relative to the use of the horse by the civilized nations of ancient America are confirmed by scientific research , Mormon writers' hand out the following quotations from geologists:

"In North America . . . in the Champlain period there were great elephants and mastodons, oxen, horses, stags, beaver, and some edentates in quartenary North America, unsurpassed by any in the world."-J. D. Dana, LL. D., in "Text-book of Geology," p. 319.

"We know that the equine type of quadrupeds existed in America from the period of the Eocene, We are, in fact, acquainted with twenty-one species of horse-like animals, and the genus of true horses has been traced down to the times preceding the present."- Professor Winchell, in "Evolution," p. 82.

"Seven species of rhinoceros existed on the plains of Colorado ; twenty-seven species of horses also cropped the herbage of those vast savannas , varying in size from that of our domestic variety, down to that of a New Foundland dog." -Professor Hayden, in "Explorations of the West.

No one who has studied geology will deny that in the earlier epochs the horse was an inhabitant of this continent along with many other species now extinct . And it is also probable that the horse and man were coexistent for sometime after the latter's arrival. Thus much I concede. But that the horse was here when man had developed himself into a semi-civilized being, and at the time those cities which have been attributed to the Jaredites and Nephites were erected, I most emphatically deny. For some unknown cause the horse long ago became extinct on the western continent, and remained so until the coming of the Europeans . "There is no doubt," says Brinton, "but that the horse existed on the continent contemporaneously with postglacial man ; and some palæontologists are of the opinion that the European and Asian horses were descendants of the American species ; but for some mysterious reason the genus became extinct in the New World many generations before its discovery." -The American Race, p. 50.

That it was not employed as a beast of burden by the builders of the structures of Peru, Central America and the Mississippi Valley is made evident by the absence of its remains among the ruins and of its carved form on any of the ancient statuary.

"The builders" of the mounds-" had no beasts of burden. These large structures were, therefore, built by man unaided."-Prehistoric America, p . 85.

"The mound builders had neither iron nor steel of which to form spades and shovels, nor had they beasts of burden to assist in the transportation of material. ”— American Archaeology, p . 61.

"The Amerinds of North America as a race possessed no beast of burden but the dog. . . . The Amerinds encountered on the plain of Texas in 1540 by Coronado were using the dog, just as they afterwards used the horse, for transporting tents and tent-poles."—North Americans of Yesterday, pp. 276, 277.

3. The ancient Americans did not possess the domesticated cereals of the Old World.

Mosiah says of the Nephites : “And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley , and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits ; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land."-Mosiah 6 :2.

But where is the proof of this extraordinary assertion? It seems very probable that, if the Americans had once had wheat and barley, they would not have given up their cultivation and use, and yet they were not to be found in America when the Europeans came . "Wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet, and rice, " says Nadaillac, "were unknown to the Indians." -Prehistoric America, p. 4.

Besides, no remains of wheat, barley or Oriental corn have ever been found in any of the ancient granaries or cemeteries on the continent. In Peru, Arizona and at Madisonville , Ohio, maize , in some instances charred, has been taken from graves and other places, but not a vestige of wheat or barley has ever been found