TIIK GREAT OCEAN. 4-0.5 



remains unchangeable in eastern Asia. Other 

 brandies spread themselves in the north of Asia; tlie 

 north-east point of the Old World offers the road 

 to the New : here the nations disperse, and become 

 alien to each other ; a certain resemblance allows us 

 to assume a common race of men, but the languages 

 have become entirely dissimilar. History shows us 

 still in fresh remembrance an inundation of people, 

 which pours itself from north to south, over the 

 plain of Mexico, drives other tribes before it, 

 leaving behind monuments of its passage, and 

 faitlifUlly preserves reminiscences of its original 

 country, the high land of Asia.* Another branch, 

 the Esquimaux, whose physiognomy shows the 

 Mongol and Chinese race, issues from north Asia, 

 over the nortliern edge of America to Greenland, 

 preserves in both hemispheres the same language, 

 the same mode of life, and the same arts. Lastly, 

 a bold sea-fearing people, the Malay race, spreads 

 from the S. E. point of Asia, over the habitations of 

 the Papuas, as far as the most eastern and remotest 

 islands of the Great Ocean ; and the question is 

 asked, whether, to the south of the line also, man 

 opened himself a passage, by means of ships, from 

 the Old to the New World ? 



We have a notion, that if a person provideil with 

 the necessary knowledge, could overlook and com- 

 pare, all the languages spoken by man, he would 



• Humboldt, Viics dcs Cordillcrts;, p. 152. See. 

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