32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cussion, and carries the question back to remote j^eriods. It is true 

 that the great antiquity of man on this continent had been maintained 

 previously, but the evidence was quite unlike what is now offered. 

 Yet, whatever may be concluded ultimately respecting the antiquity of 

 the Delaware flints, it is quite ajDparent that the red-man found in 

 Amei'ica at the period of its rediscovery by Cabot, Vespucci, and 

 Columbus, was not the descendant of any glacial man. No line of 

 connection can be made out. This continent does not appear to have 

 any Kent's Hole like that at Torbay, affording a continuous history, 

 beginning with the cave-bear and ending with " W. Hodges, of Ire- 

 land, 1G88." The race that rose to wealth and power in Central 

 America did not succeed any rude spear-maker. More and more is it 

 becoming evident that the people of Central America sprang from a 

 superior race inhabiting the borders, of the Mediterranean. This is 

 indicated by a certain similarity in manners, customs, architecture, and 

 religion. Investigations, now in progress, promise to yield the approx- 

 imate date of the period when the first conquerors of Mexico and Yu- 

 catan crossed the sea. The Spaniards learned that the people whom 

 they conquered had themselves figured in the role of invaders, entering 

 from a country called Tulan oi Tulapan, and overrunning the then 

 dominant race. It may yet be demonstrated that this took place about 

 the third year of the Christian era. But who were these earlier in- 

 habitants ? These we believe were not the descendants of an indige- 

 nous race, any more than were the later tribes. There is nothing to 

 show that they were ever connected in America with any glacial or 

 pliocene man. They might, however, be referred to still more remote 

 migrations from Europe, which may have taken place in connection 

 with events that gave rise to the story of the lost continent of At- 

 lantis, as related by Plato. The so-called aboriginal red-man is com- 

 paratively a modern, although the author of " Leaves of Grass " asks 

 concerning " the friendly and flowing savage," is he " waiting for 

 civilization or past it and mastering it?" However this may be, he is 

 wandering over the graves of peoples who left no record of their ex- 

 ploits, either in the continent where they sprung into life or where they 

 died. It is, indeed, a significant fact that the East furnishes no very 

 plain tradition of any exodus which peopled America. The prehistoric 

 emigrant must have been possessed of the idiosyncrasies of those who 



" . . . . fold tlieir tents like the Arabs 

 And silently steal away." 



The absence of such traditions is nevertheless not at all surprising, 

 since the people of antiquity, and notably the Phoenicians, guarded 

 their distant maritime discoveries with care. Indeed, we wholly mis- 

 apprehend the spirit of that remote age, in supposing that the navi- 

 gators would hasten to show the way to new-found lands, and proclaim 

 their discoveries to all the world. This was not even the spirit of the 



