8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the Indians via a still tropical Northern Asia and North America is 

 confirmed by their going naked. Had they passed through a climate 

 like that of the Kamtchatka of to-day, they must have worn clothing ; 

 and a people that once has acquired that habit never abandons it after- 

 ward. Further, it must be observed that the American Indians gener- 

 ally are bad seamen, attempting only coastwise voyages ; and this fact 

 also renders the supposition of an oceanic immigration improbable. 

 Whether man was the earliest cultivator of plants is doubtful, for we 

 know of one or two species of ants which also regularly cultivate 

 certain plants. We have, therefore, no reason to doubt that the very 

 early ancestors of the Indians, however barbarous they may have been, 

 cultivated a plant the culture of which is very easy and whose produce 

 is most abundant, for it yields, as Humboldt has shown, on the same 

 area, twenty-five times as large a crop and twenty-five times as much 

 food-value as wheat. 



I will consider the only two objections that have hitherto been 

 brought against my hypothesis : 



1. The importation of this plant by seamen who would have reached 

 the American coast in their frail canoes, being favored by ocean-cur- 

 rents, is not possible, because within the tropics there is but one ocean- 

 current from Asia toward America, namely, the equatorial current ; 

 but now this current, strictly speaking, does not touch Asia at all, but 

 has its beginning at a point eastward of the Philippines and the Mo- 

 luccas. If we make the very bold supposition — for a waste of water 

 80° wide, or twelve hundred geographical miles, has to be crossed, or 

 two thousand geographical miles from the Moluccas — that such immi- 

 gration is possible, then Polynesian and not Mongolian races would 

 inhabit America, which is contrary to the facts of the case. 2. Or, sup- 

 posing an immigration along a line near to the equator, we must pre- 

 suppose a regular intercourse in prehistoric times between Southern 

 China or Farther India and Central America, so that the later immi- 

 grants might make preparation for carrying out with them on a long 

 sea-voyage living plants, as the banana, paritium, bamboo, etc. : for 

 this supposition there is no ground whatever. Besides, many tradi- 

 tions current among various American tribes point to an immigration 

 from the north, while the equatorial current only touches America at 

 Panama. 



I have still to meet another objection, namely, that the banana, 

 when man began to cultivate it, must have had seeds (though this is so 

 no longer), and that the seeds only were brought to America at an early 

 period. This is inadmissible, because in that case the plantain must 

 often have reverted to the wild state, like all other seed-bearing tropi- 

 cal fruits. But the plantain does not grow wild, though in tropical 

 America it finds the same conditions of vegetation as in its native 

 country, and hence thrives there. The wild plantain in India has small 

 stony seeds, and is distributed widely by monkeys, bats, and insects. 



