'GOSSIP— THE AFFINITY OF RACES. 30T 



of disturbance. The historian Edwards, before quoted, says — 

 ** Lofty as the tropical mountains generally are, it is wonderfully 

 true, that all the known parts of their summits furnish incontestible 

 evidence that the sea had once dominion over them. * * * Marine 

 shells are found in great abundance in various parts of those heights. 

 I have seen on a mountain in the interior parts of Jamaica, petrified 

 oysters dug up, which perfectly resembled in the most minute cir- 

 cumstances, the large oysters of the western coast of England, a 

 species not to b-e found at this time, I believe, in the seas of the 

 West Indies." This fact would seem to indicate, that with a 

 ■change in the height or continuity of the land, there has also been 

 a change from a t-emperato to a tropical climate, which is deserving 

 of more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it. It is 

 also well known, that with few exceptions, all the islands are 

 volcanic. 



This mingling of hypotheses and fact is the basis that remains 

 ^pon which to establish a connection between the Eastern and 

 Western hemispheres, and is as strong on one side of the ocean as 

 the other. The Azores, Madeira, the Canaries and the Cape de 

 Verds, are supposed to be relics on that side of an ancient submerg- 

 ed continent — and of these the Canaries were at a remote period 

 inhabited by an inoffensive and comparatively civilized race, who 

 from their pursuits, for aught we know, may have been of the 

 lineage of the people of the Antilles, or the ancient Egyptians. 

 The inhabitants of the Antilles, exclusive of the Caribs, had affini- 

 ties of customs with this race» Both made mummies of their dead 

 by a similar process. Their mode of embalming was not that of 

 the scientific Egyptians, but was far simpler and perhaps as effica- 

 cious. They dried the dead bodies in ovens, by gradual heat, and 

 when this was done they rang-ed them in a sitting posture side by 

 side, in caves, and so handed them down to posterity. Whether 

 they communicated this idea, or were indebted for it to some acci- 

 dental arrival of Egyptians who imperfectly understood the process , 

 we are left to conjecture. They had other customs which appear- 

 ed to connect them with the most ancient races of the Eastern i 

 hemisphere — rites resembling those of the worship of Bacchus,. 

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