ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 199 



small beginnings in the country where it subsequently attained 

 its full development, or was imported in its embryonic state from 

 the Oriental Archipelago. There are some things which indicate 

 that its germs were derived from the latter source. On Ascension 

 and Easter Islands there are large structures of stone with huge 

 columnar engraved monuments. Remains of similar character 

 are reported from the Sandwich, Kingsmill, the Ladrones, Navi- 

 gator's, and other islands of the Pacific ; and it is evident that, in 

 times so ancient that all memory of them is lost, a people inhab- 

 ited these islands who had many of the arts of civilization, and 

 who were essentially and characteristically workers in stone. The 

 similarity of the works on these different islands indicates their 

 progressive occupation by a people who were compelled, in pass- 

 ing from one to another of their stopping-places, to traverse as 

 great a breadth of ocean as separates some of these from the 

 American continent ; and it is not improbable that the final rest- 

 ing-place of this people was upon the western coast of the great 

 double continent, of which the continuous Cordilleras, like a great 

 wall, arrested their eastward migration. Here they spread from 

 their center of radiation to Chili on the south and to Utah on the 

 north, elaborating in the course of time a civilization that was 

 locally colored by the varying conditions of existence, but retain- 

 ing enough of its original character to show that it was all an 

 outgrowth from a common root. 



If this was the history of our Mexican and Peruvian civiliza- 

 tion, its original founders must have belonged to the same general 

 stock with those who built the architectural monuments of India, 

 and erected in the island of Java those wonderful temples now 

 buried in the forests, and in ruins. 



Still, the time of separation must have been so remote, and the 

 culture of the period so low, that each form of civilization grew 

 up independently of the others, and they now show little relation- 

 ship. 



It is the opinion of geologists that a great continent once occu- 

 pied portions of the present areas of the Indian and Pacific 

 Oceans a continent to which they have given the name Lemuria 

 and it is speculated that this was the cradle of the human race. 



Be that as it may, from this section of the earth the brown 

 Polynesians, Malays, Tahitans, Sandwich-Islanders, and Maoris 

 spread, carrying with them characteristics and faculties which 

 might very well be developed into a civilization such as that 

 found on this continent by the European whites; and there is 

 direct and collateral evidence that they sometimes landed on our 

 shores. 



Considering the balancing probabilities, I may say that it 

 seems to be most probable that the west coast of America was 



