528 MIGRATION AND THE FOOD QUEST. 



In order to make the problem of tlieir voj'aging as simjjle as possible, 

 let us not at i)resent imagine any submergence of the ocean bed nor 

 any geological nor pbysiograpliical cbaiiges, n.or any accidents out of 

 the daily human experience. We may be allowed to restore to the 

 waters and to the land such creatures as we know to have been 

 destroyed out of them in recent centuries by the exigencies of enor- 

 mously multiplied populations and the demands of modern commerce, 

 but no more. It will make our in(|uiry much simpler and more scien- 

 tific if we have no exi)eriences introduced or imagined that any man 

 may not repeat at his leisure as in a laboratory. 



The separate marine inclosnres or areas in the progress of a migra- 

 tion from the Indian Ocean to the Columbia River and southward about 

 a great circle of the earth are roughly — 



1. The Indian Ocean, especially that part of its drainage toward the 

 east. 



2. The Indo-]Malayan archipelago. 



3. The South China Sea and parts adjacent. 



4. The East China and the Yellow Sea. 



5. The Japanese and the Tartary Sea. 

 G. The Okhotsk Sea and its environs. 



7. The Bering Sea and its drainages, 



8. The Alaskan sea and British Columbia, islands aud coast lands. 



9. Vancouver island and the Columbia basin and the head waters of 

 the Mississippi drainage on the west. 



10. The great interior basin of the United States. 



11. The Pueblo region. 



12. Mexico. 



13. Central America. 



11. Colombia and Ecuador. 



15. Peru, its coast, mountains, lake region, and the head waters of 

 the Amazon. 



10. The basin of- the La Plata. 



This general line is a great circle of the earth. On a Mercator map 

 the straight lines are commonly taken for shortest distances, which 

 they are not. Again, it so happens that the great circle here mentioned 

 is the principal earthquake and volcanic line and the natural boundary 

 of the Pacific Ocean. 



NECESSARY CONDITIONS. 



Tihe conditions into which the candid student wouhl be bound to 

 inquire concerning such a route would be the following: 



1. Food supply. — Could our imaginary Haida crew of men and women 

 travel, say, from the Andaman and Xicobar islands to the Columbia 

 River, a distance of 10,000 miles, and live on the natural resources all 

 the way? Are the situations and movements of this food sui)ply such 

 as to toll or invite wandering people steadily and continuously onward ? 



2. Cowveyance. — Were the aboriginal means of conveyance in vogue 

 in the Malay Polynesian area adequate to such a. journey t Could the 



