170 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
reflect on the many difficulties which the mere distance 
opposes to navigation in small vessels, and the absolute ne- 
cessity for food and water for a long period of time, we feel 
compelled to believe that America has received very feeble 
accessions to its population from the Polynesian islands. 
Such voyages, if admitted, could only have been accidental ; 
for it is not to be supposed that these islanders would have 
attempted remote discoveries on the vast Pacific ocean in the 
very face of the trade winds ; and a successful issue is among 
the least probable of human events. 
Even admitting that the Polynesians have accomplished all 
that the theory requires, how does it happen that, on reach- 
ing the continent of America, they should all at once have 
relinquished their intuitive fondness for the water, forgotten 
the construction of their boats, and become the most timid 
and helpless navigators in the world ? 
A comparison of languages, moreover, gives no support to 
the Polynesian hypothesis; for all the zeal and ingenuity 
which have been devoted to this inquiry, have tended only 
to disclose a complete philological disparity. 
The theories to which we have thus briefly adverted, would 
each derive the whole American population from a single 
source; but various others have been hazarded of a much 
more complex nature, by which the Indian nations are referred 
toa plurality of races, not even excepting the Caucasian. For 
example, the Peruvians, Muyscas, and Mexicans, are, by some 
advocates of this system, supposed to be Malays or Poly- 
nesians, while all the savage tribes are referred to the Mon- 
golians ; whence the civilization of the one and the barbarism 
of the other. But we insist that the origin of these great 
divisions must have been the same, because all their ethno- 
graphic characters, not excepting the construction of their 
numberless languages, go to enforce an identity of race. 
Another doctrine which has had many disciples (among 
whom was the late Lord Kingsborough, author of Mexican 
Antiquities), teaches that the whole American population is 
descended from the Jews, through the Ten lost Tribes which 
were carried away by Salmanazer, King of Assyria. Here 
