Ch. XX.] DERIVATION OF THE AMERICAN RACE. 371 



growth of an essentially indigenous civilisation. Possibly 

 sun and serpent worship, baptism, and the use of the 

 cross as a sacred emblem, were the survival of religious 

 beliefs that had obtained in the very cradle of the human 

 race. We cannot, however, believe that mankind had, 

 before the separation and dispersion of the eastern and 

 western nations, attained to any great astronomical 

 knowledge, and it is quite possible that the extraordinary 

 coincidences between the chronological and astronomical 

 systems of the Nahuatls and the eastern Asiatics might 

 have been brought about by some of the latter having 

 been stranded on the American shore. 



Humboldt argued that, " as the western coasts of the 

 American continent trend fron IST.-W. to S.-E., and the 

 eastern coasts of Asia in the opposite direction, the dis- 

 tance between the two continents in 45 of latitude, or 

 in the temperate zone, which is most favourable to mental 

 development, is too considerable to admit of the probability 

 of such an accidental settlement taking place in that 

 latitude. We must then assume the first landing to have 

 been made in the inhospitable climate of from 55 to 65, 

 and that the civilisation thus introduced, like the general 

 movement of population in America, has proceeded by 

 successive stations from north to south." If we are 

 obliged to assume that the people themselves came 

 from the old world, such an origin might be sought for 

 them as well as any other ; but all research since Hum- 

 boldt's time has favoured the idea that there are no signs 

 of the Nahuatls being a newer people than the nations 

 of Asia. And if it is not the derivation of the people, 

 but of some coincidences in their observances and know- 



* Humboldt, " Aspects of Nature," vol. ii. p. 170. 



B B 2 



