136 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute [vol. x. 



Malaya, Polynesia and America".^ Further on he states that it "does 

 not appear to be derived from any nation now existing".^ 



A Dr. Williamson, who wrote the history of North Carolina, says 

 none the less that "it can hardly be questioned that the Indians of 

 South America [who incontestably belong to the same race] are des- 

 cended from a class of the Hindoos, in the Southern parts of Asia".' 



Francis A. Allen declares that "an unbroken chain of antiquities . . . 

 connects the American and Asiatic continents by way of Polynesia",* 

 and my friend, Prof. Charles Hill-Tout is tempted to include the Salish 

 of British Columbia and the northwestern States of the American Union 

 in what he calls an Oceanic classification of peoples.^ 



As to Josiah Priest, he sees "a strong probability that not only 

 Asiatic nations, very soon after the flood, but that also all along the 

 different eras of time different races of men, such as Polynesians, Malays, 

 Australians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Israelites, Tartars, 

 Scandinavians, Danes, Norwegians, Welsh and Scotch, have colonized 

 different parts of the continent".^ 



This is scarcely compromising, and such is the number of countries 

 that author believes to have contributed to the peopling of America 

 that he would be most unlucky, indeed, if he did not hit upon some 

 that did really have something to do therewith. 



The same author is not so prudent when he attempts to show that 

 "America was peopled before the flood, that it was the country of Noah, 

 and the place where the ark was erected".'' 



A friend of mine, Alphonse Gagnon, studied the origins of only part 

 of that continent, and gave the result of his researches in a readable 

 and well documented book, L'Amerique Precolomhienne. Therein he 

 is too shrewd to go so far back as the flood, and, after a close inspection 

 of the prehistoric monuments of Central America, he is very much 

 inclined to see in them the work of a Kuschite or Ethiopian people.^ 



I have reserved Cotton Mather's opinion for la bonne bouche. Dr. 

 Mather was a zealous Protestant missionary to the Indians of New 



1 "American Antiquities and Researches into the Origin and History of the Red 

 Race", p. 431; New York, 1843. 



2 Ibid., p. 434. 



* "History of North Carolina", vol. I, p. 216. 



* Compte-Re7tdu du Congrh Internal, des Amcricanistes, p. 247; Copenhague, 1884. 

 Dr. Richard King seems of the same opinion ("Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of 

 the Arctic Ocean", Vol. H, p. 33; London, 1836). 



*J. Roy, Anthropological Institute, p. 134; London, 191 1. 

 " "American Antiquities", Preface, p. iv; Albany, 1838. 

 ' Ibid. 

 ^L'Amerique Precolomhienne; Quebec, 1908. 



