THE HUMAN SPECIES. 237 



But, stimulated by the discoveries of the Portuguese, 

 the power and commercial vigilance of Spain success- 

 fully blinded for a time the scholastic apathy of the rest 

 of Europe, and persuaded political ignorance that it 

 was Columbus who first made the discovery of America. 

 Thus, every probability supports the opinion, that men 

 from Europe or Western Africa had reached the New 

 World long before the assumed discovery of Columbus ; 

 yet it does not follow, that any who were carried to the 

 west by the trade winds ever returned. The Scandina- 

 vians, however, reached the coast at a high latitude, 

 where the north-western winds prevail in autumn, and 

 the marine current sets towards Europe. Hence they 

 returned to Iceland or to Norway with little uncer- 

 tainty. 



Disregarding for a moment the probabilities already 

 mentioned of the subsidence of a great extent of land 

 in the Pacific Ocean, it is evident, that from the east of 

 Asia and the Polynesian Islands, the principal immigra- 

 tions of mankind have taken place. Of these the Pit- 

 cairn and Easter Islands, nearest to the coast of South 

 America, are remarkable for the colossal idols of stone, 

 which have been observed in both, though the first was 

 for a time believed never to have been inhabited before 

 the arrival of the mutineers of the Bounty, and the 

 other is now in the possession of a race who do not 

 claim the fabrication of them. It may be observed, in 



much earlier in Mexico, but then the chronology now ad- 

 mitted must be wrong. See Don Antonio del Rio. Teatro 

 critico Americano, by F. Cabrera. 



