The author prefaced his description of the instrument, by a few general remarks on the communication, in very remote epochs, between the inhabitants of the old and new worlds, as deducible from affinities in their traditions, their cosmogenies, their religious rites and structures, their astronomical cycles, and their determination of the length of the year.

The Peruvian instrument was discovered, some years ago, in a huaco, or vast tumulus, that was believed to cover the remains of an Inca of Peru. It is not of unequal reeds, like the Greek syrinx, but is cut out of a piece of potstone, of a trapezoidal form, in which are cut eight tubular holes of unequal depths.