154 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
It may still be insisted that the religion and the arts of 
the American nations point to Asia and Egypt; but it is ob- 
vious, as Humboldt and others have remarked, that these re- 
semblances may have arisen from similar wants and impulses, 
acting on nations in many respects similarly circumstanced. 
* Tt would indeed be not only singular but wonderful and un- 
accountable,” observes Dr Caldwell, “if tribes and nations 
of men, possessed of similar attributes of mind and body, re- 
siding in similar climates and situations, influenced by simi- 
lar states of society, and obliged to support themselves by 
similar means, in similar pursuits,—it would form a problem 
altogether inexplicable, if nations thus situated did not con- 
tract habits and usages, and, instinctively, modes of life and 
action, possessing towards each other many striking resem- 
blances.” Here, also, we may draw an illustration from the 
old world ; for, notwithstanding the comparative proximity 
of the Hindoos and Egyptians, and the evident analogies in 
their architecture, mythology, and social institutions, there is 
now no reason to believe them cognate nations ; and the re- 
semblances to which we have adverted have probably arisen 
from mutual intercourse, independent of lineal affiliation, 
And so with the nations of America. The casual appearance 
of ship-wrecked strangers would satisfactorily explain any 
sameness in the arts and usages of the one and the other, as 
well as those words which are often quoted in evidence of a 
common origin of language, but which are so few in number 
as to be readily accounted for on the foregoing principle. 
The entire number of common words is said to be one 
hundred and four between the American languages and those 
of Asia and Australia ; forty-three with those of Europe ; and 
forty with those of Africa, making a total of one hundred and 
eighty-seven words. But taking into account the mere coin- 
cidence by which some of these analogies may be reasonably 
explained, I would inquire, in the language of an ingenious 
author, whether these facts are sufficient to prove a connexion 
between four hundred dialects of America and the various 
languages of the old world ? 
Even so late as the year 1833, a Japanese junk was wrecked 
on the north-west coast of America, and several of the crew 
iets 
