For the New-York Observer.

THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL

A REVIEW OF DR. ROBINSON'S VIEW OF THE TEN TRIBES.

I am pleased to get sight of this able and critical view of this subject, as it affords an opportunity to have the other side of the question presented, and to have the attention of the people called to it.

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There, in their outcast state, they should be wandering between vast and distant seas, from north to east; sensible they had lost the word of God; and they longing for it; but (for the present) in vain!—a perfect description of the natives of America!

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6. The recovery of the Ten Tribes is clearly to be from just such a place as the vast American wilderness. I have noted the hint in Jer. 31:21 "Set thee up way marks, &c."

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7. My last argument is, the evidence that the body of the Ten Tribes were planted in the wilds of America. This evidence I have collected from more than 50 good authorities; and give, in two editions, to the public, as a "View of the Hebrews;" which has indeed many thousands to become proselytes to the belief of this. The wilds of America, especially as thy then were, fully answer to the views given by Esdras, of the place, for which they set forth from Media; and to many views given of their abodes, in the prophetic hints adduced; and no other parts of the known world do answer to them.

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While preparing my View of the Hebrews, I was repeatedly desired, by the late Rev. Dr. Griffin, to investigate a thing, which had, in a broken manner, been stated to him; that old writings had been taken from an Indian grave, &c. He was confident here was something of interest. Before publishing my second edition, I rode hundreds of miles to find what this was, and found as follows: That a case, formed of raw skins, sowed with the sinews of some animal, had been taken from the earth, containing four stripes of old parchment containing the Scriptures, in Hebrew, written with a pen, which texts Calmet says from the true Israelitish phylacteries. That it was taken from the earth in a place called Indian Hill, by a man (of prime intelligence) who was levelling his ground, by ploughing and shovelling, and who gave me the account. . . . It probably had not long been in the ground. An aged Indian informed Rev. Dr. West, of Stockbridge, Mass., last century, that they had a little book from their ancestors; and, as they could not read it, they had buried it with a chief. This, a minister at the west told me he had received from a minister in New England, to whom Dr. West related it; but that he could not then recollect who it was, as many had called on him. This naturally would have been an article for the Indian ark, and been kept in safety, ever so many centuries; till they buried it as above.

Ethan Smith