44 THE MODERN PERIOD. 



languages in the various Algonquin dialects. This subject, to which 

 attention has been called by my friend Mr Eand, has not received 

 the amount of study which it merits, in connexion with the wide 

 diffusion of these root-words over the native languages of Eastern 

 America. Philologists, regarding grammatical construction as alone 

 important, and misled by the superficial dissimilarity of the languages 

 even of neighbouring tribes, have not taken the trouble to search for 

 those deeper resemblances which, even to this day, link the languages 

 of Eastern America with those of the opposite side of the Atlantic.* 

 It is at least certain that the primitive line of migration of the 

 Eastern Americans was northward from the West Indies and Mexico, 

 and that on the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence they met with 

 another tide of migration coming from the northward and represented 

 by the Esquimaux. Some of the evidences of this have been given 

 in my papers, in the Canadian Naturalist, on the Aboriginal Antiquities 

 of Montreal. I may merely mention here the identity of the manners 

 and customs of the American Indians along the whole east coast 

 up to the limits of the Esquimaux, and the fact that plants native 

 to Mexico, as maize, tobacco, and kidney beans, were cultivated 

 as far north as Quebec. It would seem, therefore, that in these 

 aborigines we have a people whose ancestors migrated from the western 

 part of the old world during the stone age of that region, and, isolated 

 in America, preserved the habits of that primitive period unchanged 

 almost until our own time, presenting us with a perfect picture of a 

 condition of humanity which in the old world has become so obscure 

 as to constitute a field for the wildest speculations and theories. A 

 farther question may be raised, as to the amount of displacements 

 of races in the meeting of different lines of migration, and as to the 

 possibility of any race of men having preceded the Micmacs and 

 Malicetes in Acadia. The Malicetes themselves had a tradition that 

 they migrated eastward from Canada, pressed by the Iroquois popula- 

 tion. This is very likely, though it was probably a modern movement, 

 and it may have forced the Micmacs more toward the coast ; the latter 

 in this case being perhaps the more primitive people of the two. 

 Both tribes have obscure traditions of certain primitive giants, whom 

 they know by the name Kookwes [yiyag] ; but this may be a remnant 

 of traditional lore belonging to the primeval seats of their ancestors 

 in the old world. Carved stones have also been found in New 

 Brunswick, which are unlike anything executed by the more modem 

 tribes, and may have been the work of preceding races. Figure 

 10 e represents one of these stones, found at Harris Cove, on the 

 * See examples in the Appendix. 



