IN THE PETER EEDPATH MUSEUM OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY, ETC. 253 



its islands to the islands or shores of America, and has men- 

 tioned the accidental discovery of Brazil by De Cobral in the 

 fifteenth century as an illustration of the possibility of canoes 

 or vessels having been drifted across to America. 



That the natives of the Canaries Avere not navigators is 

 perhaps no evidence against this conjecture, as it is plain 

 that the original colonists of the islands must have come by 

 sea, unless indeed there was a land connection in early times, 

 in which case there may have been greater facilities for still 

 further excursions to the westward. In any case there is 

 warrant for the belief that they afford some evidence of 

 kinship in the aboriginal populations of the two sides of the 

 Atlantic. 



Gaffarel in his curious book Rapports de rAmerique et 

 de VAncien Continent, thus sums up the American affinities 

 of the Guanches. 



1. Their brown colour, want of beard and long hair. 

 "I. Their use of pictographs or hieroglyphic writing. 



3. Their disposal of the bodies of the dead. 



4. The erection of pyramidal or round shaped tombs. 



5. The institution of vestal virgins. 



6. Their public and solemn dances. 



7. Their addiction to song and oratory. 



8. The use of beads or wampum. 



9. The recognition of descent in the female line. 



These resemblances are no doubt somewhat vague, and 

 might apply to other peoples besides those of America, But 

 to these may be added their cranial characteristics and the 

 probable affinity of their language to that of the early 

 Turanian peoples of Western Europe, as the Basques or 

 Euskariaus, which according to Hale, a very competent 

 authority, have distinct resemblances to those of America. 

 All these points of coincidence apply most strongly to the 

 peoples of the West Indies and Central America, and of the 

 East Coast of America, while Asiatic or Mongoloid and Poly- 

 nesian features are more prevalent on the west coast. 



With regard to the distance intervening between the two 

 sides of the Atlantic, Hale reminds us that this is much less 

 than the spaces of ocean intervening between the islands of 

 the Pacific which are known to have been traversed by the 

 Polynesians in their canoes. The same veteran ethnologist 

 has recently collecled traditions among the Wyandots. 

 supposed to be descendants of the peoples who inhabited the 



