"The same Time which so ruthlessly assails the works and the monuments of man, was inspired with a zeal for the perpetuation of those which belong to the gods, really startling. The Vasty Cycles of Days since the Avatar of Time have been consumed by him but for this end. The Populations of the Old World seem to have lived that Time might solemnize their obsequies, and Stamp the forged Seal of Eternity upon their bones. The acts and Inscriptions of man dissolve into thin air, while the Races co-temporary with adolescent Time continue for our own and the years that are To Come. To touch the former with a breath is to blot them out, while the last are hermetically soldered down with stone, and coffined in the Centres of the Earth: so carefully guarded are they from rude and sacriligious [sic] hands, that to unrol the Cerements which bind them, it requires the most peculiar and subtle Genius of Skill, and fingers tipped each one with a most energetic soul."