Physiography 



Shun's Minister of Public Works, Yu. The 

 evidence is primarily the possible identifica- 

 tion of existing mountains, rivers, and dunes 

 with those encountered during journeys 

 tersely described in the old manuscript 

 (Mertz, 1953). Possible support for some 

 trans-Pacific trading and visiting in very 

 ancient times is provided by certain similar- 

 ities of sculptures, games, words, and useful 

 plants in the Old and New Worlds accord- 

 ing to some workers, among whom are 

 Ekholm (1953) and Carter (1957Zj). 



Also on uncertain ground is the story of a 

 wandering band of Buddhist priests written 

 by one of them, Hui San (Vining, 1885). 

 According to his tale and those of several 

 later Chinese, the land of Fu-sang located 

 about 13,000 miles east of China was inhab- 

 ited by people who could write and weave 

 and used corn as a chief food item. Many 

 topographic, cultural, and language similar- 

 ities between the priest's story and Central 

 America were described by Mertz (1953), 

 who in addition interpreted the record as 

 showing that the first landing of these Chi- 

 nese visitors in a.d. 458 was made in south- 

 ern California, precisely at Hueneme. 

 Others, such as Goodrich (1938), find no 

 justification for assuming early Chinese 

 knowledge of North America, pointing out 

 the absence of maps or references to maps 

 of North America in pre-Columbian Chinese 

 literature. 



Of interest was the finding by Mr. Ralph 

 Ghdden, owner of a museum at Avalon, 

 Santa Catalina Island, of the top half of a 

 Chinese ceramic burial image at Empire 

 Landing in 1922. The image was under an 

 abalone shell, a typical Indian "treasure 

 box." After studying a photograph of the 

 image, Dr. T. Y. H. Ma of Taiwan Univer- 

 sity, Formosa, and his colleagues reported, 

 "The preliminary judgment from only a 

 black and white photograph is that it cer- 

 tainly is of Chinese origin. The workman- 

 ship shows that it could not be earlier than 

 the Tang dynasty (a.d. 618-905) and it 

 could not have been made later because 

 such statuettes were not made so well after 

 the Tang dynasty, when they began using 

 paper or wooden figures for the same pur- 



pose of accompanying the dead to burial. 

 As to the possible time of bringing such a 

 statuette to the American continent we must 

 surmise that it was during the last days of 

 the Tang dynasty when people were being 

 massacred during the uprising of Huang 

 Chao (a.d. 875-884) that someone just put 

 out to sea in a junk to leave his destination 

 to fate, just as people run out of the Iron 

 Curtain now." There is no means of deter- 

 mining when the image arrived in California 

 or even when it was buried, owing to in- 

 complete observations when it was dis- 

 covered. Conceivably, it was brought by a 

 ship which Vizcaino, during his visit in 1602 

 (Bolton, 1916, p. 85), was informed had been 

 wrecked on the island a few years earlier. 

 Also it could have been found by Indians in 

 a wrecked junk bearing no living persons. 

 Several such junks have been washed ashore 

 in Alaska and Washington during historical 

 times, two since 1900, and the same ocean 

 currents still deposit Japanese glass fishing 

 floats on the islands and mainland of 

 southern California. 



Although the concept is intriguing, more 

 concrete data are needed before pre-Spanish 

 visits to southern California of people other 

 than Indians can be accepted. Neverthe- 

 less, the possibility of such visits remains. 

 The uncertainty resulting from lack of ad- 

 equate records is well exemplified in central 

 America where the Maya god named 

 Quetzalcoatl, the bearded visitor from across 

 the ocean, has been variously identified as 

 of Hebrew, Chinese, Greek, and Norse 

 origin. 



The earhest weU-documented explorations 

 are, of course, those by the Spaniards. A 

 few years after Hernan Cortes took Mexico 

 City, he crossed the Gulf of California to 

 the tip of the peninsula to begin in 1535 the 

 exploration of the coast to the north. By 

 1539 one of his captains, Francisco de UUoa, 

 had sailed to the head of the gulf, back to 

 the tip of Baja California, and then part 

 way up the Pacific coast (Wagner, 1937; 

 Sykes, 1937). A second expedition under 

 Hernando de Alarcon also reached the head 

 oFthe Gulf in 1540. Their finds, shown on 

 a map of 1542 (Fig. 1), were soon extended 



