68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 
Perfect arrangement and maturity of plan marks the order of creation. 
Life is to unfold, cultivate and develop our rudimentary powers. Every atom 
bears its own record. Our own soul is the parchment, whereon is indelibly 
engraved our virtues and our vices. Action and rest succeed one another. 
Periods of intense activity are succeeded by others, either dilatory or inert, 
when action gradually subsides. The world is now entering a period of 
great popular activity. 
Language is inadequate to convey a perfect idea of a spectacle, open to the 
analytical eye of every observing naturalist; sublime as it is wonderful, exact 
as itis impartial. All things are subservient to exact law, and similar con- 
ditions lead to similar results. An elementary study of the early intercourse 
among so-called western nations, seems imperative to those who would seek 
to unravel a corresponding movement among aborigines of the far East. 
The independence of thought and action, which this age has developed, 
precludes the acceptance of any theory by the educated classes, which is not 
in accordance with nature and reason. Only by practical illustrations can we 
properly comprehend nature’s intricate principles and processes. Science 
says: prove all things, all truth is susceptible of proof. 
Although many individual instances here quoted may be familiar to schol- 
ars; their ethnological value is especially apparent when massed in one col- 
lection, where they show early intercourse to have been habitual rather than 
exceptional, revealing the probability as well as the possibility of very early 
admixture of races, and finally elicit testimony to establish a certainty. 
From the éarliest dawn of human history, tribes and nations appear to have 
been more or less mixed, either when captured as prisoners of war, like the 
Sabine women of Rome, or united in friendly alliance for purposes of com- 
merce. General communication, here shown to have extensively occurred 
during the early stages of human development, naturally implies that all 
early races brought in contact by commerce, have to a certain extent, mu- 
tually left their impress upon each other. 
Before submitting the ancient records of Asia to a scrutinizing search, we 
briefly trace the early footsteps of national intercourse in the histories of 
western nations. Gradual progression marks the development of commerce, 
from the rude attempt of the ancients to follow their coast with primitive gal- 
leys, having solitary mast and sail, or oars double or treble banked, to the 
dauntless energy of ocean steamships at the present day. Slowly but surely 
commerce is raising inventive genius above the fame of military chieftains, 
and enabling Watt, Fulton, Arkwright, Whitney and Morse, to claim a greater 
share of our true admiration, than agents of destruction like Alexander, 
Cesar or Genghis khan. 
Maritime commerce, which exchanges what a nation can spare from ‘its 
abundance, for what it wants, is of very ancient origin, and may have had its 
beginning in the unrecorded era, nearly coéval with the development of in- 
telligence in man. 
The study of astronomy, a science essentially necessary to ocean navigation, 
was very ancient among oriental nations. Learned astronomers are persuaded 
that the celestial observations of the Chinese were accurately taken B. C. 
2249; those of an eclipse, B. C. 2155, have been proved as authentic, and 
