MIGRATION AND THE FOOD QUEST. 535 



Nile Valley, iu Syria aud Mesopotamia, iu China and India, cereal, 

 pastoral, aud mecliauical industries have been developing. Many of 

 the peoples practicing- them push to the east; they divide the coast. 

 The aborigines disappear; they leave their shell heaps and move north- 

 ward, then eastward and westward, following the winds and currents, 

 and take the shortest and most inviting path onward. 



There came to the eastern side of America three hundred years ago 

 the nations of Europe. They crossed the continent and circumnavi- 

 gated it. They severed our aboriginal Pacific Coast culture in many 

 places : 



1. The Kussiaus in Bering Sea nearly severed the native commerce 

 of the two hemisi)heres. 



2. The Hudson Bay Company enlisted the movements of the Indians 

 iu their behalf and destroyed the aboriginal migrations and commerce. 



3. The American fur traders projected their operations between the 

 stocks of Oregon and California. 



4. These were followed by exj)lorers, settlers, and miners in our 

 century. 



5. The transcontinental railroads and the creation of independent 

 states obliterated all vestiges of- former aboriginal movements. 



VI. — THE RACE PROBLEM. 



The opinion of such scholars as Morgan and Brinton as to the unique- 

 ness and homogeneity of an American breed or race is not gainsaid, 

 but surely the last word has not been said upon this theme. It can not 

 be denied, however, that this race is a mixed one fundamentally, and 

 that there enter into it varied anthropometric characters. This is not 

 only true of the living tribes, but of the bones from the graves. It has 

 even been averred that Polynesians may have crossed from the Pacific 

 archipelagoes, moved northward aud mixed with long-headed northern- 

 ers, forming a mesocephalic type. 



Kow, I would beg leave to suggest a different solution for these mys- 

 teries: Following the most abundant food supply along the seas iu 

 which primitive men were best equipped to obtain it, following currents 

 of earth forces that would furuish incitement and even motive power, 

 the ancestors of Malays, Polynesians, and Indians could have come 

 from the equator to America, traveising for nearly the entire distance 

 a series of landlocked seas of shallow water, abounding in food supply 

 of fish and birds aud marine invertebrates, aud part of the way with 

 innumerable vertebrates, as we have seen. 



As to cranial index, the Eskimo are among the longest- headed peo- 

 ples of the world, ranking with Abyssiuians, Caroline Islanders, Hot- 

 tentots, and some Polynesians. Most Americans are mesocephalic, as 

 are the Malay-Polynesians, but the northern Mongoloids are the 

 shortest-headed people iu the world. In uasal iudex Topiuard places 



