1891-92]. DENE ROOTS. 147 
And let nobody say that, because the American facies and physique 
in general are somewhat different from those of the nations of Europe 
and Asia, we must conclude to a diversity of origin as well as of race. 
Have we not in our own Indo-European family types more dissimilar 
than those which characterize the American and some Asiatic races ? 
Surely nobody will deny that a North American Aborigine is physically 
more alike to a Samoyed ora Mongolian than the inhabitants of the 
Indian peninsula resemble either a German or a Greek*. Even in such 
ethnological subdivisions as the Celtic and the Italic, we find notable 
differences of type and complexion. Yet nobody ever dreamt of con- 
sidering, for instance, the Irish or the Saxons, and the French or the 
Italians as the products of two distinct creations. 
The question then for the Christian ethnographer is: Since we cannot 
regard the American tribes as autochthonous, in what part of the old 
world are we to find their parents or relatives? Many have been the 
answers to that query, and the opinions of Americanists have been so 
varied and contradictory that the student is fairly puzzled as to whichis 
the most plausible. Grotius, de Laet, Garcia and others discussed it in 
their days with more learning than judgment. To Brerewood, Korn, 
Jefferson, Charlevoix, Buffon and Cuvier, the red skins were nothing 
else than expatriated Mongolians or Scyths. Foster even designated 
the Tartar emperor Kublai-Khan as the virtual colonizer of the New 
World. Mitchell made the North American Indians regular Samoyeds. 
During the last century and early in this, a number of writers, treating 
many primitive usages of mankind as particularly Jewish, endeavoured 
to prove that the Americans were descended from one of the twelve 
tribes. 
But, without disregarding what there might be of truth in any of these 
conflicting theories, it must be confessed that sociology is of itself 
utterly unequal to the task of solving such a problem. Comparative 
Philology, alone of all the kindred sciences, can claim the right and 
ability to do so. It was thus understood by the judicious Reland who 
may be regarded as one of the first to collect from travellers specimens 
of American languages.t Later on, Smith Barton made considerable 
progress in the attempt to compare words in the American dialects with 
terms found among the nations of Northern and Eastern Asia. ‘In 83 
languages examined by Barton and Vater, 170 words have been found 
the roots of which appear to be the same; three-fifths resemble the 
* The facial similarities of the Mongolians and some American natives are so striking that I 
know of persons who mistook in my presence British Columbia Indians for Chinese. 
+De linguis Americanis, Traject. 1708. 
