44 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



seemed to invite them in that direction. No geographical barriers 

 rise across the path, and game of all kinds was abundant, so 

 that in no very long time the primitive Indians may have 

 populated both the American continents throughout their whole 

 length, from north to south. It is interesting to observe in this 

 connection that at the southern extremity of South America 

 we still find a dolichocephalic Leiotrichous race, the Fuegians, 

 who, though very inferior to the Eskimo in all respects, yet 

 present some very striking resemblances to them in bodily 

 structure, implements, and mode of life. 



The subsequent differentiation of the original Red Indian 

 races — i.e. the primitive Algonkians and Athapascans — may have 

 given rise to all the existing races of both the American con- 

 tinents, except along the western coast, where the occasional 

 •stranding of vessels from the east of Asia or the islands of the 

 Pacific may have added a foreign element. 



That the Algonkian and Athapascan races once occupied a 

 far larger area than they do now, or rather did before the 

 invasion by modern Europeans, is shown not only by fossil 

 remains found outside their present boundaries, but by circum- 

 scribed areas still inhabited by them, which are isolated from 

 the main body of their race by alien tribes. 



Recurring for a moment to the Eskimo, we may mention 

 that Steensby, 1 as the result of a very interesting investigation, 

 is led to conclude that the origin of the fully developed Eskimo 

 cult must have occurred somewhere near the region of Corona- 

 tion Gulf, where the conditions are peculiarly favourable for 

 an " emancipation from forest life " and an adaptation to the 

 environment provided by the Arctic coast. This view would 

 not be wholly inconsistent with that which we have just 

 sketched out ; but it rests on resemblances between the imple- 

 ments and mode of life of the Eskimo and Indians which are 

 susceptible of a different explanation. 



If the views we have expressed in this and the preceding 

 .articles are well founded, it would appear that the surviving 

 races which represent the vanished palaeolithic hunters have 

 succeeded one another over Europe in the order of their 

 cranial capacity or intelligence : each has yielded in turn to 

 2, more highly developed and more highly gifted form of man. 

 From what is now the focus of civilisation they have one by 



1 H. P. Steensby, Om Eskimokulturens Oprindelse, Copenhagen, 1905. 



