ORIGIN OF POLYNESIAN NATIONS. 105 



It is impossible to follow the route we had 

 taken, from the American, to the vicinity of the 

 Asiatic continent, and to view the many insular 

 lands scattered on the way, like as many links 

 of communication between the two most ex- 

 tensive portions of the habitable globe, without 

 indulging in some reflections upon the cor- 

 respondence which exists between the Asiatic 

 and Polynesian countries, in regard to geological 

 character, population, and natural productions. 



Both the Indian and Polynesian islands bear 

 indubitable traces of being the offspring of vol- 

 canic action. Some of them may be fairly sup- 

 posed to derive their volcanic origin and com- 

 motions from their vicinity to their respective 

 continents ; but there are others, so remote 

 from continents, and apparently so independent 

 in their existence, which still exhibit similar 

 phenomena, (as the earthquakes at Tahiti, the 

 active volcanoes at the Sandwich Isles and New 

 Hebrides, and the many extinct craters on several 

 other islands of the Pacific,) that we are called 

 upon to admit the existence of a distinct Plu- 

 tonic action in the centre, and at the bottom, of 

 a vast and fathomless ocean. 



Facts are in favour of the opinion, that the 

 current of population has flowed to Polynesia 

 from the westward ; or, in other words, that 



