OF LANCASTER COUNTY. 6 



however, nor tlie earlier Scandinavian expeditions, can be said even to 

 liave formed a connecting link between the America of the red man and 

 the America of his white brother." ^ 



The Chinese are actually reported to have visited America in A. D. 

 1270, when China being overrun by the Tartars, a body of one hundred 

 thousand men, refusing obedience to the invaders, are supposed to have 

 set sail in a thousand ships to find a new country or perish in the enter- 

 prise, and to have ultimately settled in Mexico.^ 



The Normans and the Germans also have claimed the discovery of 

 America long before the voyages of Columbus, but it is needless to dis- 

 cuss claims which cannot be verified, and it is sufficient for our purpose 

 to state that no authentic account of actual discovery has been estab- 

 lished prior to the landing of Columbus at Guanahani, or Cat Island, in 

 the Bahamas on the 11th of October, 1-192. 



2. Eesuming the question, "How was America peopled?" Ave enter 

 a field in which speculation and theory have run riot. A brief survey 

 of it, without discussion, is all we propose to furnish. 



Thomas Morton, author of "New Canaan," a book published in 1657, 

 argues for the Latin origin of the Indians, and the value of his reasoning- 

 may be inferred from the circumstance that because he fancied he heard 

 the Indians make use of the word Pasco-pan he concluded that their 

 ancestors were acquainted with the god Pan. 



Williamson^ says: "It can hardly be questioned that the Indians of 

 North America are descended from a class of the Hindoos, in the south- 

 ern parts of Asia." He holds that they could not have come from the 

 North because the South American Indians are unlike those of the 

 North. The correctness of this conclusion may be determined by the 

 ibllowing testimony of Humboldt who states that "the Indians of New 

 Spain bear a general resemblance to those who inhabit Canada, Florida, 

 Peru and Brazil. Over a million and a half of square leagues, from Caj^e 

 Horn to the river St. Lawrence and Behring's Strait, we are struck at 

 the first glance with the general resemblance in the features. We think 

 we perceive them all descended from the same stock, notwithstanding 

 the prodigious diversity of their languages. In the portrait drawn by 

 Volney of the Canadian Indians we recognize the tribes scattered over 

 the savannahs of the Apure and the Carony. The same style of fea- 

 tures exists in both Americas." 



Thorowgood [1652], Adair [1775] and Boudinot [1816], claim for the 

 Indians Hebrew descent and identify them with the lost tribes. 



Cotton Mather gravely accounts for the origin of the Indians by the 

 craft and subtlety of the devil, " who decoyed those miserable savages 



1 Chambers' Cycl. S. V. America. 2 Hist, of China and Univ. Hist., Vol. XX. 



3 Hist, of N. Carolina, I, 216. 



