352 REPOKT— 1891. 



land double canoes were plentiful ; but a modern Maori of 

 thirty years of age did not know that his ancestors used such a 

 vessel. The paper then went on to recite a number of old 

 Polynesian stories, and to point out the striking coincidence 

 between the customs related therein and those existing in 

 ancient Europe. This was most particularly illustrated with 

 reference to Milton's description in " Paradise Lost " of the war 

 in heaven, and it was pointed out that this story, almost word 

 for word, was orally transmitted in Polynesia, centuries before 

 Milton lived, in the Maori legend of Tane and Eangi. The 

 similarity of the well-known legend of Maui catching the sun 

 with a flax rope to some told by the Ojibbeway Indians and 

 the Dogrib Indians was next commented on. The Polynesian 

 deluge-myths — viz., the deluges by water and by fire — were 

 next referred to, and the striking similarity between the Chal- 

 dean account of the deluge and that of the Polynesians was 

 noted; then was noted the identity of the legends of the 

 American Indians, the Indians of Brazil, and numerous others 

 concerning the deluge of fire. Indeed, as it was put in the 

 paper, the legend came from the great continents as Keltic, 

 Greek, Egyptian, and American. It was also found in Poly- 

 nesia, the Maori sages speaking of some mighty conflagration 

 in the past. In concluding, the author said, " I think the 

 question may well be asked as to the scientific value of these 

 old stories ; and the answer is as follows : If the chronology 

 taught us in our youth allows of no expansion, the benefit we 

 should derive from the study of these old legends would be 

 small indeed. I do not fear, however, to shock even the 

 most orthodox by claiming for the human race an antiquity 

 upon this earth almost inconceivable, since Professor Sayce, 

 the champion of Biblical archa3ology, is not afraid to state 

 that he considers human beings have communicated with 

 each other by means of articulate language for at least 

 forty thousand years — nothing being said as to the duration 

 of the inarticulate period. That people separated by vast 

 distances of sea and land, divided also now into races ap- 

 parently distinct in blood and speech, should hold possession 

 of the same primitive legends argues, if not a connnon origin, 

 at least an intercommunication in a past so infinitely remote 

 that the mind is filled with awe, and there is opened up a vast 

 field for inquiry into the period antecedent to our oldest history. 

 Eaces which spoke Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin, the cultivated 

 peoples of our histories, have left us a few writings which help 

 to illume the near past as a candle glimmers in some dark 

 mine ; but what can we gather concerning the lives and 

 thoughts of those ancient forefathers of ours who transmitted 

 to us the blood which runs in our veins to-day ? Their per- 

 sonalities lie deep in the abysses of that ocean of time where 



