on the Original Population of America. 15 
clusion, that, although no ships which had actually visited 
the natives of America (always excepting the Scandinavians) 
were known to have returned, still, among many that 
perished, some must have reached the New World at dif- 
ferent periods, and from different directions, sufficient to 
account for all the phenomena of languages, traditions, arts, 
and physical characteristics, found therein ; but not, there- 
fore, bearing proofs that any credible records existed of a 
former intercourse, or that either Jews or Welshmen, or 
rather Phoenicians and Celts, were sufficiently numerous to 
be nationally distinguishable at subsequent periods. Al- 
though there was a received tradition among the Mexican 
and several other nations, of a people superior to themselves 
dwelling beyond sea, which, they believed, was destined to 
visit the West at some future period, this legend, or popu- 
lar rumour, cannot have been else than an obscure record 
of a remote event, anciently brought by a Carthaginian, 
Celtic, Greek, or Roman ship, or by more than one of them, 
but certainly from Europe, or at least from nations belonging 
to the European system of civilization. 
On the west side of America, the evidence appears in fa- 
vour of a more frequent and varied intercourse. Towards 
the southern coast, and in the interior, Malay characteristics 
are obvious, and in the north whole tribes must have passed, 
using their seal-skin coracles, or crossing on the winter ice 
from the more desolate east of Asia, at Behring’s Straits, 
scarce forty miles asunder, and beset with islands, to a com- 
paratively fertile and wooded region, such as the north-west 
coast of America offers. The form of the native boats is 
nearly alike round the whole arctic circle; and in the na- 
tional habits of Laplanders, Karakasses, Tongusians, Tschut- 
ski, Samoyeds, and Ostiaks, there are traits which seem to 
have had permanent influence even far in the south of Ame- 
rica, as if a very early stem of population had proceeded 
southward along the west coast, and a second at a later pe- 
riod had been encountered and partially checked by races of 
different origin and irreconcileable temperaments, perhaps 
the nigh-nosed heroic people already noticed. Several tribes, 
and among others the Toltecs, asserted that they came in a 
