520 THE ADVENT OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



will eiicouiiter nothiug coiTespoudiug to the historic songs aud the 

 geneologies composing the oriil archives and trnditioiis so religiously 

 preserved in all the islands of the Pacilic. But modern science has 

 resources, the power of which we are better and better coming to un- 

 derstand, combining the data furnished by the study of geologic strata 

 and their fossils, of comparative craniology, of linguistics, and of 

 ethnography. We may hope to enter ui)on this group of problems and 

 to foresee their soluti<^>n. Serious efforts have already been made in 

 this direction, which luiv^e not been unfruitful. One can even now in- 

 dicate upon the chart a considerable number of itineraries, even though 

 as yet only partial and local. They are scarcely more than fragment- 

 ary traces, similar to those which the predecessors of Hale found in 

 Oceania. Possibly it will be a long time thus; nevertheless, the Amer- 

 icanists should not lose courage; each new discovery, of however small 

 importance it may at first ai)iiear, is some progress toward the general 

 end. Year after year these fragmentary traces, now so isolated and 

 scattered, will be consolidated and coordinated with each, other, and 

 then will come a day when a map of American migrations can be con- 

 structed showing the movement of early man from Asia to Greenland, 

 and to Cape Horn, similar to the maj) already made of Polynesian mi- 

 gration from the Indian Archipleago to Easter Island, and from New 

 Zealand to the Sandwich Islands. 



