GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 241 



found among the Chinese or Japanese, we might assume 

 that it had been handed down for ages. The Chinese have 

 an almost identical belief, and our late minister to China, 

 Mr. Edwin Conger, related to me the details of the attempt 

 to frighten the dragon at the approach of an eclipse. The 

 Chinese, who can calculate eclipses as well as can other 

 nations, went to their temples and performed many singular 

 rites which Mr. Conger personally observed, all of which, to- 

 gether with the creation of noises, was to drive the dragon 

 from the moon. When we also remember that the location 

 of Chinese junks which have been blown from the coast of 

 China during the past fifty or more years has been mapped, 

 and they have been found in nearly every degree of longi- 

 tude between China and the Pacific coast of North America, 

 we can readily see how one branch of the highest mammal, 

 man, reached America thousands of years ago from China, 

 and became the forefathers of some of the present Indians. 

 This cannot be given as an exact fact, but the student will 

 perceive that on the evidence it is a plausible theory and 

 very possible. 



It is the prevailing impression among many scientific 

 men that man originated in Asia and migrated thence, but 

 absolutely nothing is positively known on the subject. 

 He may have appeared in many localities for ages and 

 from several different stocks, gradually migrating over the 

 globe, changing in appearance and language in long eras 

 of time. Since the birth of the first mammals the land 

 has doubtless changed very much. Some has risen from 

 the ocean ; vast regions have sunk beneath the sea, and 

 groups have been cut off, isolated, and destroyed, so that 

 to-day we contemplate some singular facts. 



HOLDER, MAMMALS — l6 



