THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 63 



I think it was Dante who makes Adam enunciate the notion 

 that there is no primitive language of man to be found existing upon 

 earth, but the connecting Unks of language which can be traced in 

 the words of all nations are so palpable that they plainly point to 

 one common origin. To trace these affinities, however, would of 

 itself fill a volume, and I shall only allude to one or two peculiar 

 ones. 



Philologists trace a remarkable connection as subsisting between 

 the modern languages of Europe and the ancient dead languages of 

 the Indian Vedas, thereby tracing the origin of the human race to 

 some probably Asiatic centrg. 



Throughout the Polynesian Archipelago there are connecting 

 links of language in each Island, showing all the different islanders 

 to be the descendants of one common race. Even in Madagascar 

 are recognized certain Malay and Polynesian words. Important 

 elements of relationship are stated by linguists to be traceable 

 between the native languages of South America and those of the 

 Polynesian family, which suggest a peopling of that part of the 

 continent from Asia through the Islands of the Pacific, and Garnett 

 goes even so far as to show an analogy between them and the 

 languages of Southern India. This subject is largely entered into 

 in the proceedings of the Philological Society, and is too extended 

 except for passing allusion here. The study of the affinity of 

 languages is now leading philologists to anticipate important 

 revelations as to the links connecting the tribes and nations of 

 mankind till they are traced to one original centre, and a determina- 

 tion of the probable lapse of time requisite for the formation of the 

 various sub-divisions now existing. 



Writing has also its connecting links. Picture-writing, or the 

 literal figuring of the objects designed to be expressed, merged into 

 the Egyptian hieroglphics, which, through a natural series of pro- 

 gressive stages, were developed into a phonetic alphabet, the symbols 

 of sounds of the voice^ The Indian of to-day, on the far off prairies 

 of the west, chronicles his deeds on the skin side of his buffalo robe 

 and on his birch bark, precisely as his ancestors, centuries ago, painted 

 on the rocks, and this picture-writing, when understood, is remark- 

 ably figurative. 



In the history of the Indian tribes of the United States, men- 

 tion is made of a census roll of a band of Chippawas, in Minnesota, 



