CHAPTER XVII 
PREHISTORIC MAN IN THE NEW WORLD 
Tuat North America has been joined to Asia at various 
times in the geologic past we know. A most striking proof 
of this is the very close resemblance between certain forms 
of animals living in the two hemispheres. Thus we find 
true alligators—not crocodiles—in the rivers both of China 
and of North America; while that curious animal, the tapir, 
occurs both in southern Asia and in tropical America, and 
the American bison, popularly miscalled the “buffalo,” 1s 
much like his cousin of the Old World. The same is true 
of the moose, or true elk, which occurs in various closely 
similar forms from Scandinavia right across Siberia and 
Canada to Maine. The animal we call “elk” is not really 
the elk at all, but was mistakenly so named by the early 
settlers. This list of resemblances might be extended 
almost indefinitely. 
The same is true of humanity itself. The type of man 
living in the New World when it was discovered by Euro- 
peans is of the same species as that found everywhere else. 
It is especially close of kin to races still found in various 
parts of central and northeastern Asia. There, just as in 
the Americas, we find people with brown or copper-colored 
skin, dark eyes, and coarse, straight, black hair. If dressed 
alike, in many cases they could not be told apart. 
Just when man first entered the Western Hemisphere 
we can not yet say with any assurance. One thing, how- 
ever, is certain, that he originated in the Old World and 
only arrived much later in the New. It is possible, of 
course, that some of the earlier races of man may have 
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