V. PROBLEMS OF INTERCONTINENTAL COMMUNI- 

 CATION 



PROBLEMS of race and culture origins, discussed in some 

 detail in the preceding section, are necessarily the subject 

 of earnest research on the part of the archeologist, and a 

 consideration of the first importance is that of the bridges and 

 ferries, the probable routes by means of which the 

 Avenues of Ap- American Continent could have been reached by 



piOiR'h to America _ _ ... 



migrating peoples from foreign shores. As the 

 continental areas stand to-day, geographically and climatically^ 

 these possible approaches are, first, the North Atlantic chain 

 of islands connecting northern Europe with Labrador; second, 

 the mid-Atlantic currents setting steadily westward from the Afri- 

 can coast to the shores of South America and the West Indies; 

 third, the middle and southern Pacific currents traversing the vast 

 expanse of ocean separating the Polynesian islands from South 

 America; fourth, the Japan currents setting to the northeast from 

 Asia and washing the shores of North America ; fifth, the Aleutian- 

 Commander chain of islands connecting Kamchatka with Alaska; 

 and sixth, the well-known route by Bering Strait. Other possible 

 connections during remote periods and under different climatic 

 conditions are across the polar regions north and south. Geological 

 changes within the human period even may have obliterated other 

 thoroughfares, and all of those enumerated above may have mider- 

 gone changes increasing or diminishing their availability as routes 

 of migration. As they stand, the majority are certainly not prac- 

 ticable for primitive voyagers and may never have been traversed 

 by uncivilized man unless by wayfarers drifting with the winds or 

 currents to ti-ansoceanic shores. 



It has been a favorite theory with a few writers that the North 

 Atlantic was wholly or partly bridged by land con- 

 North Atlantic i-^ections in the remote past, that the Faroe Islands, 



Route . . 



Iceland, and Greenland were so intimately connected 

 that northern Europe could have furnished at least a part of the 

 American population ; but modern researches seem to discredit this 

 theory, and James Geikie, one of our most learned authorities on 

 continental evolution, does not hesitate to declare ^ that " not a single 



1 Geilde, Fragments of Earth Lore, p. 28.3. 

 32 



