MIGRATION AND THE FOOD QUEST. 539 



imbroken as we x)ruceed backward iu time. Or, to pat the matter in 

 anotlier shape, there never was known to history a day when the two 

 continents were not intimately associated. The evidences of the past 

 seem to confirm the ojDinion that as we go backward in time the geo- 

 graphic conditions were more favorable and the contact more intimate. 



In conclnsion, the author has not here nndertaken to do more than to 

 clear the way for a specific study of the civilizations of America and 

 those of eastern Asia. 



Such a study will require a great deal of patient inquiry on the part 

 of students cooi^eratiug systematically and scrupulously ouly to know 

 the truth. The investigations of Dr. Walter Hough show that the fire 

 drill, consistiug of a vertical revolving shaft and a horizontal hearth 

 piece, exists uninterruptedly from Australia to Tierra del Fuego, and 

 that besides this common apparatus, on the contrary, in the Malay 

 area, have also been invented the fire plow, the fire saw, and the fire 

 syriuge. Wherever the better modes of fire making have superseded, 

 as in Japan, the carpenter goes on boriug holes with reciprocating 

 motion between his palms. 



Dr. Hough's studies in x)late armor point to its existence in the entire 

 stretch from Japan to the Columbia. If anyone will study carefully 

 Von Schrenk's Eeisen und Forschungen im Amur-Lande, third volume, 

 and compare the figures and plates with similar illustrations from the 

 Aleutian Islands or east Greenland, he will at every turn be arrested 

 by seemingly useless similarities. The curious ivory ornaments on the 

 sea otter hunter's wooden hat, made at great cost, ai e only explained 

 by the patterns cut from bark and attached to their clothing. The same 

 odd fashion is in full play in east Greenland. The harpoon of the 

 east Greenlander and the central Eskimo, with line hole through the 

 toggle head effected by two diagonal holes bored in the flat side, is 

 almost precisely that of the Gihak. The canoe of bark pointed at 

 both ends below the water line is identical on the Amur and the Koo- 

 tenay, and so on. 



The author protests against closing the door of investigation per- 

 emptorily, believing that it is the privilege of all to open any question 

 anew. He desires to lay aside for the present any arguments relying 

 upon continents that have disappeared, upon voyages across the pro- 

 found sea without food or motive, upon the accidental stranding of 

 junks, or upon the aimless wandering of lost tribes. These may all 

 have entered into the problem of the aboriginal life of America. They 

 are historical and geological questions and must be decided by the 

 methods of these two sciences. It is here essayed to show that when 

 the continent of America was peopled, it was done by men and women 

 purposely engaged in what all sensible i)eople are now doing, namely, 

 trying to get all the enjoyment possible out of life for their eftbrts, and 

 that the present condition of the earth and of peoples offers all the 

 opportunity necessary for such peopling. 



