Geography 779 



There is not space to mention the many reports of different 

 travelers and collectors in the West India islands. No part 

 of the world seems to have been so frequently visited by 

 writers for the Smithsonian as the West India islands and 

 the different countries in Central America. 



ASIA 



PASSING now from America, we will consider the work of the 

 Smithsonian Institution in extending our knowledge of the 

 Old World. Ten years after the Institution was chartered, an 

 exploring expedition was sent out by the United States, and 

 by the able management of its commander, Perry, Japan was 

 first opened to foreign trade. Since that time, and within 

 the last thirty years, greater changes have taken place in 

 Japan than ever before in any country a country which 

 had been closed to the rest of the world for over two hun- 

 dred years, and where no changes had taken place in the 

 manner, habits or progress of the people for many centuries. 

 The Japanese in many ways differ from their neighbors 

 the Chinese and Koreans ; though they resemble them in 

 some of their habits and in their religion, yet their language 

 is very dissimilar. Inquiries have therefore been made to 

 ascertain their origin, and especially by Romeyn Hitchcock, 

 who visited Japan in 1887 and 1889. On traveling into the 

 northern part of the country his attention was called to the 

 Ainos, who were supposed to have been the earliest inhabit- 

 ants of that territory, and at some early period had been for- 

 cibly driven from the south, the richest portions of Japan, 

 into Jeddo, the most northern and poorest of the islands. In 

 visiting northern Japan to learn more of the Ainos, he heard 

 of the Pit Dwellers, earlier inhabitants of Japan than the 

 Ainos, but greatly inferior to them, who probably had been 



