6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and most enduring type of architecture, and facilitates by its form 

 the erection of the highest stone structures. The rounding dome 

 of an earth mound and the angular side of a rock pyramid are the 

 result of material only. 



If we now turn to China as a possible region from which migra- 

 tions may have come in the past, we have only to study the historical 

 records of that ancient people to realize how hopeless it is to estab- 

 lish any relationship. Let one study the Ceremonial Usages of the 

 Chinese (1121 b. c. — translated by Gingell), and he will then ap- 

 preciate the wonderful advancement of the Chinese at that early 

 date — the organized government, the arts, customs, manufactures, 

 and the minute observances and regulations concerning every detail 

 of life. With these records before him he may search in vain for 

 the direct introduction of any art or device described in this old 

 Chinese work. A few similarities are certainly found between the 

 East and the West, but these arise from the identity in man's mental 

 and physical structure. With two legs only, for example, it is found 

 difficult to sit on a seat comfortably in more than a few ways. One 

 may sit with both legs down, with one leg under, with legs crossed 

 a la Turk, or the unconventional way throughout the world with one 

 leg over the other at various angles. It would seem with this limited 

 number of adjustments that any similarities in the attitude of cer- 

 tain stone statues in America and Asia could have but little weight. 

 Prof. F. W. Putnam believes that he has established an Asiatic 

 origin of certain jade ornaments found in Central America. If this 

 conclusion could be sustained, we should then have evidences of con- 

 tact with an Asiatic people in the stone age, which in itself was one 

 of great antiquity for the Chinese, and one long antedating the origin 

 of Buddhism. In the Chinese work above alluded to the whetstone 

 is mentioned for sharpening swords, and the craft employed in pol- 

 ishing the musical stone. Confucius also. refers to the musical stone 

 in his Analects. This is as near as we get to the use of stone eleven 

 hundred years before Christ. It is to the merit of Putnam to have 

 first called attention to the fact that many of the jade ornaments, 

 amulets, etc., of Central America had originally been portions of 

 jade celts. The discovery is one of importance, whatever explanation 

 may be reached as to the origin of the stone. In Costa Rica these 

 celt-derived ornaments have been cut from celts composed of the 

 native rock, and it would seem that these old implements handed 

 down in the family led to their being preserved in the form of beads, 

 amulets, etc., much in the same spirit that animates us to-day in 

 making paper-cutters, penholders, and the like from wood of the 

 Charter Oak, frigate Constitution, and other venerated relics. 

 Among other evidences of contact the existence of the Chinese calen- 



