07 



cow {Uifthia) not known to have oxisleil anjwhore else, wliicli were killed 

 without any great difiiculty, and which afforded abundant and not 

 unpalatable food. Had these islands ever been inhabited b}' savages, 

 would they have unanimously left this unfoiling supply of food for 

 explorat'.ons on an unknown and stormy sea, and finally settled in 

 preference on islands nearly bare of all food except echini? 



I do not think it conceivable. 



Finally, the Tatar, Japanese, or Chinese origin of these people, so 

 favorite an hjqiothesis with many, finds no corroboration in their manners, 

 dress, or language. M. Alphouse Pinart, who has carefully studied the 

 language with unusual facilities for comparison, finds in it no trace of these 

 foreign tongues. 



Much has been made, with some show of [)lausibilit}-, of the casting 

 up, 1)}- the great easterly Pacific current, of Japanese junks on the coast 

 of America and the Aleutian Islands. But it must be recollected that these 

 junks (the construction of which implies a people already far advanced in 

 the arts), which have undoubtedly been thrown up in this manner, are first 

 carried clear to the coast of Ameiica in latitude 50° before the northerly 

 returning branch of the ciirrent would thi-ow them on the islands. Then 

 they are as likely to be carried south as north by the southerly arm of the 

 current. In point of fact, many more are known to have been cast on the 

 continent than have ever been known to reach the islands. The drift by 

 which a Japanese junk, on which three persons (all men) remained alive, was 

 finally cast on the south shore of Adakh in 1871 occupied nine months. 

 During this time, the men lived on rain-Avater and the cargo of rice, and 

 when cast on the shore would inevitably have starved if they had not 

 been discovered by an Aleut hunting-party. 



Continents are not peopled, nor do whole races emigrate, in this manner. 



I conclude, therefore, that the Aleutian route is totally indefensible, 

 and should be rejected from any hypothesis intended to be reasonable. I 

 learn from whalers, familiar with tlie Arctic Sea and Bering Strait, that, at 

 present, in winter, the natives are accustomed to cross the strait on the ice. 

 There are, therefore, no a priori reasons why they might not have done so 

 in the past. In fact, as between the route by way of Bering Strait and 



