Ideniily of Race in the American ayid Asiatic Man. 7 



3. Meshes of nets regularly knotted and tied, and formed ctf 

 a strong and even twine. 



4. Mockasons or coverings for the feet, manufactured with 

 remarkable ability, from the baik or rind of plants, worked into 

 a sort of stout matting. 



5. Piece> of antique sculpture, especially of human heads and 

 of some other form«, found where the exterminated tribes had 

 dwelt, resemltling the carving at Otaheite, New- Zealand, and 

 other places. 



6. Works of defence, or fortifications, overspreading the fer- 

 tile tract of country formerly possessed by these people, who 

 may be supposed capable of constructing works of much greater 

 simplicity than the morals or burial-places, and the hippas or 

 fighting-stages of the Society Islands, 



7. As far as observations have gone, a belief that the shape of 

 the skull and the angle of the face in the mummies correspond 

 with those of the living Malays. 



I reject therefore the doctrine taught by the European na- 

 turaUsts, that the man of Western America differs in any ma- 

 terial point from the man of Eastern Asia. Had the Robertsons, 

 the Buffons, the Ravnals, the De Pauws, and the other specula- 

 tors upon the American character and the vilifiers of the Ameri- 

 can name, procured the requisite information concerning the 

 hemisphere situated to the Avest of ns, they would have disco- 

 vered that the inhabitants of vast regions of Asia, to the number 

 of many millions, were of the same blood and lineage with the 

 undervalued and despised population of America. The learned 

 Dr. Williamson has discussetl this point with great ability. 



1 forbore to go further than to ascertain by the correspon- 

 dences already stated, the identity of origin and derivation to the 

 American and Asiatic natives. I avoided the opportunity which 

 this grand conclusion afforded me, of stating that America was 

 the cradle of the human race; of tracing its colonies westward 

 over the Pacific Ocean, and beyond the sea of Kamschatka, to 

 new settlements ; of following the emigrants by land and by wa- 

 ter, until they reached Europe and Africa ; and lastly, of fol- 

 lowing adventurers from the former of these sections of the globe 

 to the plantations and abodes which they found and occupied in 

 America. I had no inclination to o])pose the current opinions 

 relative to the place of man's creation and disjjcr'-ion. I thought 

 it was scarcely worth the while to inform an European, that on 

 coming to America, he had left the new world behind him for 

 the purpose of visiting the Old. It ought, nevertheless, to be 

 remarked, that there are many important advantages derived to 

 our reasoning from the present manner of considering the sub- 

 ject. The principles being now established, they will be sup- 



A 4 ported 



