STONE AGE IN NEW JEKSEY. 6i\) 



from a primitively-civilized race and bad gradually and completely lost 

 both tlie use and tradition of letters — to my mind a most improbable 

 hypothesis — still we must look on their system of pictnre-\Yriting as 

 being of American origin. Even if a system of writing by letters could 

 ever be altogether lost, which I doubt, it certainly could not be aban- 

 doned for that of i)icture-writing, which is inferior in every point of 

 view. If the ^Mexicans had owed their civilization not to their own 

 gradual improvement but to the influence of some European visitors, 

 driven by stress of weather or the pursuit of adventure on to their 

 coasts, we should have found in their system of writing and in other 

 respects unmistakable proofs of such an influence. x\lthough, there- 

 fore, wo have no historical i^roof that the civilization of America was 

 indigenous, we have m its very character evidence more satisfactory 

 perhaps than any historical statements would be." 



Dr. Daniel Wilson, who endeavors to prove the Asiatic origin of the 

 aboriginal American, says of him, he "is among the ancients of the 

 earth,"'* and that, " whcncesoever he derived his origin, lie presents 

 to us just such a type of uuprogressive life as the nomads of the Asiatic 

 steppes. The red Indian of the Northwest exhibits no change from 

 his precursors of the fifteenth century ; and for aught that appears 

 in him of a capacity for development, the forests of the American 

 continent may have sheltered hunting and warring tribes of Indians, 

 just as they have sheltered and pastured its wild herds of buffaloes, for 

 countless centuries since the continent rose from its ocean bed. That 

 he is no recent intruder is indisputably proved alike by physical and 

 intellectual evideuce.t" Eurther on the same writer observes: " Mau 

 entered on the occupation of the ISTew World in centuries which there, 

 as in older historic regions, stretch backward as we strive to explore 

 tliem. His early history is lost, for it is not yet four centuries since 

 tlie red man and this western world were made known to us ; and he 

 still exists as he did then, a being apart from all that specially distin- 

 guishes either the cultivated or uncultured man of Europe.'"| Does not 

 this admission of the great antiquity of the American aborigines carry 

 with it, of itself, a proof of the autochthonic origin of the Iiulian ? And 

 the similarity of races — is it not but a repetition of what we have seen 

 in the stone implements themselves, that like surroundings will pro- 

 duce similar weapons and tools? 



Certainly one wonld not endeavor to trace a relationship between 

 the ancient people who fashioned and used the rude and elaborate stone 

 im{)lements of Great Britain and the red Indians who chipped and 

 polished the specimens here figured, yet, excepting the minerals of which 

 they arc made, how similar are they to the English specimens! 



What though the Mongol does resemble the American, does this in 

 itself prove relationship? And, also, it may be asked, which of the 

 American aborigines, as they now are, does the Asiatic Mongol most 

 resemble; or has each American tribe a representative in the other 



* Prebistoiic Mau, 2tl ed., p. 11. t L. c, p. 10. I L. c, p. 13. 



