UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 311 



with modern English, French, or German words which 

 are allied to those of the Algonquin tribes, as well as 

 to the oldest tongues of Europe and the East. The 

 time is probably approaching when it will be admitted 

 that all languages are radically the same, and that 

 they all have their roots in those archaic forms of 

 speech to which we apply the term Turanian. Whence 

 this unity of language ? Can it have sprung from the 

 independent growth of thought and language in many 

 centres, or from the slow development of speech 

 through countless generations of semi-brutal and 

 semi-articulate men ? Does it not rather point to 

 the formation of language at no very distant date 

 chronologically, and among rational and thoughtful 

 beings, and also to a time when the earth was of 

 " one tongue and of one speech " ? 



We have had frequent occasion to mention the 

 identity of implements and weapons in the Old World 

 and the New in pre -historic and modern times. This 

 may arise from the fact that in all countries the same 

 substances are in the main offered as the raw material 

 of human industry. Stone, clay, wood, bone, and 

 native metals have similar properties everywhere. 

 The sharp edges of flint chips, the toughness of green- 

 stone, the ductility of native gold and native copper, 

 commend themselves alike to the aboriginal artisan 

 in all countries. Eising a step beyond this, the 

 different specific gravities of different substances, 

 the leverage gained by handles, the use of elasticity 

 in urging projectiles, and other properties of bodies, 



